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THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


THE 

WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Unr- 

*  f 

M-  U  MfT 

'  i 


BY 

MARY  TRACY  EARLE 


NEW  YORK^v 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 
1896 


Copyright,  1896, 

by. The  Century  Co. 


THE  DEVINNE  PRES8. 


TO 

FOUR  LITTLE  FIDDLERS 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


CHAPTER  I 

A  HOODOO  POTTER 

HE  little  fiddler  was  the  only 
child  in  Potosi  who  did  not  run 
from  Giacomo  Barse,  the  pot¬ 
ter.  She  ran  to  him  and  with 
him,  for  she  was  his  own  baby. 

Giacomo  was  tall  and  thin,  with  strange 
flashing  black  eyes,  and  a  black  mustache  so 
long  that  he  draped  it  over  his  ears  when  he 
worked.  Sometimes  the  fiddler  climbed  onto 
a  crock  behind  him  and  caught  the  ends  of  it 
at  the  back  of  his  head,  and  played  he  was  her 
horse ;  and  then  he  usually  threatened  to  put 
her  on  the  wheel  with  the  clay,  and  make  her 
over  into  something  less  troublesome. 

The  fiddler  knew  all  about  how  the  clay 
whirled  on  the  wheel,  growing  tall  and  slender 


2 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


or  broad  and  short  under  his  hands ;  but  the 
other  children  knew  nothing  of  it,  for  they 
never  passed  the  pottery  except  at  full  speed. 
Giacomo  did  not  know  that  people  told  the 
children  he  was  a  “  Hoodoo,”  and  he  wondered 
why  they  only  ran  the  faster  when  he  called 
to  them  to  come  in  and  play  with  his  baby, 
and  he  would  make  little  water  monkeys  for 
them  on  the  wheel.  When  the  fiddler  was 
wandering  around  outside  the  door,  they  even 
ran  from  her ;  but  Giacomo  and  his  little  fid¬ 
dler  were  used  to  playing  alone  together,  and, 
on  the  whole,  they  liked  it  just  as  well  as  if 
people  had  played  with  them. 

It  did  not  seem  as  if  any  one  should  have 
been  afraid  of  the  potter,  simply  because  he 
made  queerly-shaped  jugs  and  vases,  and  mugs 
which  poured  the  water  out  where  you  were 
not  expecting  it,  or  even  because  he  painted 
his  pottery  buildings  in  stripes  of  red  and 
white  and  blue,  as  no  houses  were  ever  painted 
before,  and  the  palings  of  his  high  garden 
fence  alternately  green  and  yellow,  and  his 
hand-cart  a  purple,  royal  enough  for  any  king 
who  needed  one ;  there  had  been  a  time,  in 
fact,  when  Potosi  people  were  rather  proud  of 
Giacomo’s  queerness,  and  joked  him  about  his 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


3 


love  of  bright  combinations  of  color, — “  artistic 
effects,”  he  called  them  ;  but  in  the  three  years 
since  his  wife  had  died,  and  he  had  been  tak¬ 
ing  care  of  his  baby,  people  had  stopped  joking 
with  him,  or  even  talking  to  him  when  they 
could  help  it,  and  they  no  longer  whispered 
behind  his  back  that  he  was  “just  a  little 
cracked,”  but  they  used  that  other  word,  which 
frightened  the  children.  So  Giacomo  was  left 
with  his  baby  and  his  thoughts  for  company; 
and  he  had  such  an  unusual  baby  and  such 
unusual  thoughts  that  he  scarcely  stopped  to 
ask  why  he  was  left  with  them,  except  once 
in  a  while,  when  the  baby  screamed  because 
the  children  ran  away  from  her. 

One  day  the  potter  started  across  Potosi, 
trundling  an  enormous  green  vase  in  the 
purple  hand-cart,  while  the  baby  ran  ahead 
and  behind  and  around  him  all  at  once.  The 
vase  was  one  of  those  which  people  put  be¬ 
side  their  doorsteps  and  plant  with  flowers, 
and  it  was  of  unusual  size,  deep  and  bowl-like, 
having  been  ordered  for  a  certain  large  century 
plant  which  was  owned  by  a  rich  man  living 
on  the  beach.  Giacomo  was  making  the  best 
time  he  could  with  his  cart  and  his  vase  and 
his  baby>  for  some  of  the  great  white  thunder- 


4 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


heads  that  are  always  sleeping  round  the 
horizon  of  Potosi  in  August  had  risen  swiftly 
since  he  had  started,  and  a  sweet  storm-wind 
was  already  rustling  across  Potosi  Point,  clear¬ 
ing  the  air  for  a  gush  of  rain. 

“  Hurry  on  there,  you  little  fiddler,  I  ’ll 
catch  you,”  he  began  calling,  and  then  the 
baby  flew  in  front  of  him  like  a  little  quail, 
lifting  her  shoulders  as  if  they  were  wings, 
while  Giacomo  pursued  at  a  measured  trot, 
with  the  great  vase  jarring  securely  along  on 
its  side  in  the  cart.  Yet  no  matter  how  steady 
the  vase  nor  how  swift  the  baby,  vases  and 
babies  are  not  good  companions  with  which 
to  outrun  a  shower,  and  before  they  were 
nearly  to  the  beach  the  big  drops  began  to 
fleck  the  road  and  to  splash  into  their  faces. 
The  splashes  took  the  little  fiddler  unaware, 
and  she  resented  them,  and  came  running 
back  to  Giacomo  with  her  confident  hands 
upstretched. 

“  I  don’t  like  those  —  those  rains  to  hit  me,” 
she  cried.  “  See,  I ’m  not  heavy,  you  can  lift 
me  —  you  carry  me.” 

Giacomo  looked  at  the  cart,  which  needed 
his  two  hands,  looked  at  the  vase,  and  looked 
at  the  baby.  Then,  draping  the  ends  of  his 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


S 


mustache  over  his  ears,  he  stooped,  and  all  at 
once  the  little  fiddler  was  no  longer  beseech¬ 
ing  him  from  the  ground,  but  was  sitting  in 
the  inside  of  the  vase,  while  he  looked  at  her 
through  its  great  round  mouth.  It  took  her 
several  thoughts  to  decide  whether  it  was  a 
laughing  or  a  crying  matter,  but  she  finally 
agreed  with  Giacomo,  and  laughed. 

“What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me?  ”  she 
asked. 

“  I ’m  going  to  give  you  a  carriage  ride,” 
said  the  potter;  “but  if  you  don’t  stop  stick¬ 
ing  your  head  out,  and  crawling  round  and 
trying  to  roll  the  vase  out  of  the  cart,  I  ’ll  put 
you  on  my  whizzing-wheel  with  the  clay  when 
we  get  home  and  make  a  pint  cup  of  you,— 
you  see  if  I  don’t.” 

The  little  fiddler  drew  back  and  her  lip 
quivered.  “No,  no,  papa,”  she  protested  ve¬ 
hemently,  “a  quart  cup  !  a  quart  cup  !  I  don’t 
want  to  be  a  mean  little  pint  cup  !  ” 

“You  take  care,  then,  if  you  don’t  want  to 
be  a  pint  cup,”  said  the  potter  threateningly, 
and  picked  up  the  handle  of  the  cart  and  bent 
himself  over  it  and  ran. 

They  sped  through  the  great  slant  sheets 
of  rain,  and  the  people  who  saw  them  thought 


6 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


that  Giacomo  was  hurrying  because  for  once 
he  did  not  have  his  baby  with  him ;  and  they 
never  guessed  that  the  little  fiddler  was  curled 
up  inside  the  vase,  staring  out  in  fascination 
at  the  slender,  nimble,  drenched  figure  of  her 
father,  smiling  and  nodding  at  her  while  he 
pursued  her,  headlong  through  the  rain. 

Just  as  he  passed  under  one  of  the  tall  pine- 
trees  which  stood  by  the  road,  there  came  a 
blinding  flash  of  lightning,  and  then  the  little 
fiddler  felt  herself  thrown  forward  with  a 
strange  thrill  into  the  dark.  The  pine-tree 
had  been  struck  and  shivered,  and  one  of  its 
great  branches  had  crashed  down  upon  Gia¬ 
como,  and  he  lay  under  it  stunned  and  help¬ 
less,  not  even  knowing  enough  to  be  glad  that 
his  last  effort  had  sent  the  cart  flying  into 
safety,  with  the  fiddler  lying  white  and  still, 
but  uninjured,  in  the  vase. 

Some  frightened  men  came  running  out 
from  a  house  near  by,  and  pulled  the  heavy 
branches  from  Giacomo  and  looked  at  his 
ashen  face. 

“  Reckon  he ’s  dead,”  one  of  them  ventured, 
‘‘might  ha’  knowed  he ’d  come  to  some  such 
end.”  They  hesitated  a  moment,  fearing  to 
touch  him.  Then  one  of  them  bent  down  and 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


7 


felt  over  the  potters  heart,  but  looked  more 
frightened  as  he  drew  his  hand  away.  “  Boys,” 
he  gasped,  “he’s  a-livin’.  Might  ha’  knowed 
a  hoodoo  could  n’  be  killed  like  that.”  They 
looked  at  one  another  questioningly.  “  Reck¬ 
on  if  he  ’s  lived  through  that  he  can  take  care 
of  hisse’f,”  they  decided,  yet  they  still  stood 
and  looked  at  him,  feeling  very  contemptible 
in  having  determined  to  leave  him  where  he 
lay.  Suddenly  one  of  them  gave  a  little  whoop 
of  relief.  “  If  there  don’t  come  ole  Doctor,” 
he  cried,  “an’  he  can  do  with  Barse  jus’  what 
he  has  a  mind  ter.” 

The  doctor  came  rushing  along,  leaning  for¬ 
ward  against  the  rain.  “What’s  this?”  he 
cried,  stopping  short.  “  Man  stunned  by  light¬ 
ning  and  got  a  broken  leg  ?  Dump  that  vase 
out  of  the  hand-cart  and  put  him  in.  Here, 
take  hold  —  no!”  For  the  little  fiddler  had 
come  to  herself,  and  was  lifting  her  little 
pinched  face,  with  its  great  eyes  like  Giacomo’s, 
to  look  out  of  the  vase.  Even  the  doctor 
gazed  at  her  a  moment  as  if  she  were  some¬ 
thing  unreal.  She  stared  back  curiously,  and 
then  began  to  cry. 

“  Huh  !”  said  the  doctor.  He  was  disgusted 
with  himself,  and  it  did  not  seem  as  if  even  his 


8 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


gold  watch  could  pacify  that  wrathful  voice. 
One  good  thing,  its  sound  was  rousing  the 
potter.  Giacomo  lifted  his  head,  and,  seeing 
the  people  standing  helpless  between  him  and 
his  baby,  he  tried  to  rise,  but  fell  back  with  a 
whispered  word  to  the  child. 

“Here,  what  you  all  waiting  for?”  de¬ 
manded  the  doctor.  “  Come,  my  little  lady, 
we  Ve  got  to  put  your  papa  in  your  place,  and 
I  ’ll  carry  you  and  you  can  play  he  ’s  your 
baby,  riding  —  how ’s  that  ?  ”  he  motioned  to 
one  of  the  men  to  take  one  side,  and  they 
whisked  the  vase,  baby  and  all,  out  of  the  cart, 
and  set  it  down  on  the  ground.  Then  they 
put  Giacomo  into  the  cart,  while  the  baby 
grew  angrier  and  angrier  as  she  tried  to  climb 
up  the  bulging,  slippery  sides  of  the  vase. 

“  You  bad,  bad,  mechants men,”  she  screamed, 
“  you  sha’n’t  do  that  to  my  papa  !  You  sha’n’t ! 
You  sha’n’t !  ” 

“  Be  still,”  Giacomo  cried  out  faintly  to  her. 
“  Be  still  —  or  I  ’ll  make  you  —  into  a  pint  cup 
—  when  we  get  home.” 

That  awful  threat  was  almost  reassuring  at 
a  time  like  this,  and  the  little  fiddler  was  calmed 
by  it  to  waiting  with  more  composure  until  she 
was  stowed  away  in  her  father’s  arms  —  for 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


9 


he  would  have  it  so — and  they  were  being 
wheeled  off  toward  the  pottery. 

One  of  the  men  went  inside  and  helped  the 
doctor  put  Giacomo  to  bed  and  dress  his  leg, 
but  as  soon  as  that  was  done  he  started  away, 
“  What  ?  ”  cried  the  doctor,  who  had  followed 
him  out  of  doors,  “  you  ‘  dassent  ’  stay  and  take 
care  of  him  —  what  you  afraid  of  ?  Where 
are  the  rest  of  the  men  ?  What ’s  become  of 
them  ?  ” 

“  They  dassent  come  into  the  pottery,”  said 
the  man.  “  There ’s  queer  things  goes  on  there. 
I ’m  not  skeery,  I  don’t  mind  very  much  my¬ 
self  in  the  daytime,  but  there  ain’t  no  money 
would  hire  me  to  stay  here  at  night, —  not  in 
the  same  room  with  that  man  and  that  there 
wheel.  That  there  wheel  don’t  belong  to 
Barse,”  he  added  in  a  lower  tone.  “  Barse 
rents  hit  from  the  devil.” 

“  Stuff!  ”  said  the  doctor. 

“  I ’ve  seed  hit  myself,  through  the  winder, 
by  night,”  said  the  man,  nodding  his  head. 

“  So  you  ’re  willing  to  let  a  man  with  a 
broken  leg  lie  alone  in  a  house  with  a  help¬ 
less  child  to  take  care  of?”  said  the  doctor. 
“  Be  off,  then ;  I  reckon  there  are  better  peo¬ 
ple  than  you  in  Potosi.” 


IO 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


The  man  winced.  “Well,”  he  said,  dog¬ 
gedly,  turning  a  sidelong  glance  toward  the 
doctor,  as  he  started  away,  “  if  you  find  man, 
woman  or  child  that  ’ll  stay  all  night  with 
Barse  in  that  pottery,  I  ’ll  eat  the  first  crow 
that ’s  cooked  for  me.  They  ’re  all  like  me, 
they  ’ve  seed” 

.The  doctor  marched  back  into  the  house. 
“Barse,”  he  said,  “do  you  have  any  people 
anywhere  that  you  could  send  for  to  come  and 
take  care  of  you  ?  ” 

“Not  a  soul  of  my  own,”  said  the  potter, 
“but  I  ’ve  got  a  creole  sister-in-law  up  on  Cy¬ 
press  Creek,  and  I  reckon  she  ’d  come.  I 
have  n’t  seen  her  since  my  wife  died,  and  she ’s 
got  a  lot  of  kids  to  look  after,  but  there  ’s  a 
mother-in-law  in  the  case,  and  I  reckon  they 
could  be  left  with  her.  I  don’t  know  anything 
better  than  to  send  up  there  and  see.  ’Arriette 
Rousselle ’s  her  name,  Antoine  Rousselle’s  wife.” 

“  I  ’ll  send,”  said  the  doctor,  “  and  in  the 
mean  time  I  ’ll  keep  an  eye  on  you,  unless 
somebody  calls  me  away.” 

He  went  out,  and  when  he  came  back  he 
brought  something  with  him  for  Giacomo  and 
the  baby  to  eat.  “  Odd  place  this,”  he  said, 
and  began  nosing  around  among  the  vases  and 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


ii 


pitchers  and  flower-pots  and  water-coolers,  or 
ollas — “monkeys,”  they  call  them  in  Potosi. 
They  were  of  every  queer  form  and  color  that 
had  ever  come  into  Giacomo’s  queer  head  ;  but 
before  the  doctor  had  half  looked  through  the 
odd  useful  things,  and  the  still  odder  attempts 
to  make  everything  under  the  sun  out  of  clay, 
there  was  a  call  outside  the  pottery,  and  he  was 
summoned  to  go  to  another  urgent  case.  He 
came  and  stood  a  moment  by  the  potter’s  bed. 
It  was  just  sundown.  The  storm  had  cleared 
away  and  a  golden  light  streamed  in  through 
the  window  and  glowed  on  the  eccentric  med¬ 
ley  of  the  room.  Everything  was  rather  dusty, 
yet  it  had  a  certain  neatness  of  its  own,  for  the 
furniture  and  the  shelves  were  all  painted, 
brightly  painted,  and  even  the  potter’s  wheel, 
which  stood  by  the  window,  looking  clay- 
daubed  and  innocent,  had  had  its  coating  in 
the  potter’s  craze  for  adorning  everything  in 
reach.  The  doctor  found  himself  looking  at 
the  baby  to  see  if  she  was  painted,  too,  but  she 
was  not.  She  was  a  dark,  elfin  little  thing,  even 
now,  when  she  had  crawled  up  beside  her 
father  and  fallen  fast  asleep. 

“  Is  she  likely  to  be  quiet  all  night?  ”  asked 
the  doctor. 


12 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“Yes,”  said  Giacomo,  “or  if  she  is  n’t  I  ’ll 
sing  to  her.” 

“  I  suppose  your  sister  ’ll  get  in  about  ten 
o’clock,”  said  the  doctor,  “  and  I  guess  you  ’ll 
get  along  all  right  till  then,  but  I  ’ll  send  some¬ 
body  else  around  if  I  come  across  anybody  — 
that ’s  free  to  come.” 

Giacomo  smiled  bitterly.  “  You  ’ll  not  find 
anybody  that  ’s  free,”  he  said,  “and  if  you 
could  tell  me  why,  I ’d  like  to  know.  But  if 
you  ’ll  just  light  that  lamp  over  there  and  set 
it  on  the  wheel  before  you  go,  I  reckon  we  ’ll 
make  out  even  if  my  sister  don’t  come.” 

The  doctor  lighted  the  lamp.  “  I  ’ll  be  in 
early  in  the  morning,”  he  said.  “  Good-night 
and  good  luck  to  you,”  and  he  took  Giacomo’s 
hand.  When  he  had  gone  Giacomo  held  up 
his  hand  and  looked  at  it. 

“  Did  n’t  know  I  was  lonesome,”  he  said. 
“  Ridiculous  how  good  it  felt  to  have  my  hand 
crunched  like  that.” 

Late  that  night  the  messenger  who  had 
gone  to  Cypress  Creek  drove  back  within 
pointing  distance  of  the  pottery.  “  Dat  is  de 
place,”  he  said  to  the  small  girl  who  sat  be¬ 
side  him. 

“W’y  doan’  yo’  drive  up  moah  close?’’ 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


13 


asked  the  girl.  They  were  speaking  French 
just  then,  but  they  had  a  soft,  slurred  accent 
which  caressed  the  word,  whether  in  French 
or  English. 

The  man  shrugged  his  shoulders.  “  I  ’ave 
been  moah  close  at  oddah  time/’  he  answered, 
“an’  I  t’ink,  as  yo’  ’ave  to  go  inside,  it  make 
not  ver  much  mattah  wheah  yo’  staht.”  He 
had  said  little  to  her  on  their  way  coming,  but 
the  little  had  made  her  wonder,  and  at  this 
she  wondered  still  more.  She  climbed  down 
from  the  wagon,  took  her  bundle  from  the 
man,  and  turned  toward  the  pottery. 

“ Attendee /”  the  man  cried  out,  “waid  a 
minute.  I  ’ave  not  de  wish  to  scare  yo’,  but  lis¬ 
ten,  do  not  touch  de  wheel, — it  is  of  the  devil.” 

“  W’at  ?  I  do  not  understand,”  said  the  girl. 

The  man  gave  a  dry  little  laugh.  “  I  made 
a  little  joke,”  he  said.  “  W’en  he  is  sick  like 
dis,  dere  will  be  not’ing  at  all  of  strange.” 

The  girl  stared  at  him,  her  eyes  growing 
big  in  the  dark,  then  she  faced  back  toward 
the  pottery,  walked  up  to  the  door  and  knocked. 

“  Come  in,”  called  a  voice. 

As  she  opened  the  door  she  heard  the  rattle 
of  the  wagon  wheels  rolling  away  over  the 
hard  shell  road.  She  caught  her  breath  and 


14  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

went  into  the  low,  shadowy  room.  The  little 
lamp  shone  out  feebly  on  a  confusion  of  half- 
seen  forms,  that  all  seemed  pointing  toward 
the  strange  white  face  of  the  potter  lifted  from 
the  pillow,  the  long  black  mustache  draped 
back  into  the  darkness. 

“Who  are  you  ?  ”  asked  Giacomo  sharply. 

“I  am  Clothilde  Rousselle,”  the  girl  an¬ 
swered,  “an  my  mama  she  say,  tell  Uncle 
Giacomo  yo’  are  fourteen  year  old,  an’  yo’  ’ave 
grow  ver’  much  since  he  see  yo’.” 

“  Come  here,”  said  Giacomo  ;  and  when  she 
had  come  close  enough  for  scrutiny,  he  looked 
her  over.  “Yes,”  he  said,  “I  reckon  you’re 
the  same  Clothilde  that  was  n’t  much  bigger 
than  this  when  I  saw  you,”  and  he  made  a 
motion  toward  the  fiddler,  whom  Clothilde  had 
not  noticed,  sleeping  beside  him. 

“  Oh,  is  it  de  baby  ?  ”  she  cried  eagerly. 

“Walk  round  the  bed  softly  so  you  can  see 
her,”  said  Giacomo.  “Why  did  your  mother 
send  you  instead  of  coming  herself?  You ’ve 
grown,  but  you  ’ve  not  grown  enough ;  I 
wanted  a  woman.” 

“  Mama  say,”  said  Clothilde  in  a  low  voice 
as  she  leaned  ecstatically  over  the  baby’s  dark 
head,  “  mama  say  to  tell  yo’  dat  wid  my  gran’- 


A  HOODOO  POTTER 


15 

modder  so  sick  it  is  imposseeb’  dat  she  come, 
an’  dat  I  ’ave  grow  so  grande  I  work  like  a 
woman.” 

“  But  do  you  know  how  to  take  care  of  a 
baby  ?  ”  asked  the  potter,  looking  over  her 
grave  little  figure  with  growing  approval. 

“  Home  we  ’ave  always  babies,”  said  Clo- 
thilde  proudly. 

“  Humph,”  said  Giacomo,  “  in  a  big  family 
people  never  know  how  to  take  care  of  chil¬ 
dren,  they  don’t  have  time.  What  I  want  to 
know  is  if  you  can  sing  a  baby  to  sleep,  and 
make  her  laugh  when  she  wants  to  cry,  and  if 
she ’s  sick  make  her  think  it  ’s  fun  to  take  her 
medicine,  and  when  you  have  to  work  make 
her  think  you  ’re  doing  it  just  to  entertain  her, 
— that ’s  what  I  mean  by  taking  care  of  a  baby. 
Can  you  do  that  ?  ” 

“  I  doan’  know,  me,  ’bout  de  medicine,”  said 
Clothilde,  “because  it  is  ver’  bad  in  de  mouth, 
an’  dey  know  it;  but  all  dose  odder  t’ing,  yas, 
I  can  do  dose.” 

“All  right,”  said  Giacomo,  “then  you  ’ll  do 
better  than  most  women.  Now  you  just  go 
into  that  room  and  go  to  bed  and  get  rested, 
for  the  little  fiddler  will  give  you  a  lively  day 
to-morrow.” 


16  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

“  Uncle  Giacomo,”  asked  Clothilde,  hesitat¬ 
ing  a  little,  “ w’at  was  dat  yo’  call  her?  We 
hear  yo’  name  her  Louise  ?  ” 

Giacomo  laughed  lightly.  “  Oh,  that  was  at 
first,  when  she  was  christened,”  he  explained. 
“Then  when  she  began  to  creep,  she  scuttled 
about  so  quick,  like  a  fiddler  crab,  that  your 
aunty  called  her  ‘Troululu,’  and  I  sometimes 
call  her  that  and  sometimes  say  it  in  plain  En¬ 
glish,  little  fiddler.  There,  go  quick,  she ’s  fuss¬ 
ing  as  if  our  talking  was  about  to  wake  her.” 

Clothilde  lighted  a  queer  pottery  lamp  that 
her  uncle  pointed  out  to  her,  and  crept  on  tip¬ 
toe  into  the  adjoining  room.  As  she  closed 
the  door  and  lifted  the  lamp  to  see  around  her, 
she  shrank  back  from  somebody  standing  by 
the  window.  Then  she  noticed  a  stiffness  in 
the  figure,  and,  going  up  to  it,  she  found  that 
it  was  made  from  jars  of  different  sizes,  the  one 
on  top  having  a  bland  crockery  face,  which 
smiled  at  her  wherever  she  went.  Finally,  she 
lay  down  on  the  bed  without  undressing,  and 
left  her  little  lamp  lighted  close  at  hand.  But 
whenever  she  closed  her  eyes,  she  saw  her 
Uncle  Giacomo’s  strange  face,  and  whenever 
she  opened  them,  the  crockery  man  smiled  at 
her,  and,  between  them,  she  could  not  sleep, 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 

T  would  not  be  the  neighbors 
on  Cypress  Creek  who  would 
leave  a  man  with  a  broken  leg 
alone  in  his  house  with  a  baby 
to  take  care  of.  That  was  the 
first  thought  Clothilde  had  when  she  woke  in 
the  morning,  for  just  when  she  was  not  re¬ 
membering  about  it,  she  had  dropped  asleep 
after  all. 

Everything  was  quiet  in  the  next  room,  so 
she  did  not  stir;  but  pretty  soon  she  heard  a 
clear  little  voice  say,  “  Papa !  ” 

“Yes,  little  fiddler,”  said  Giacomo,  “what 
is  it  ?  ” 

“  Papa,  there  is  a  big  white  dream  in  the 
corner  that  troubles  me.  Tell  it,  ‘  Go  away 
dream,  you  ’re  no  good.’  ” 

“  Go  away  dream,  you  ’re  no  good,”  re¬ 
peated  the  potter  solemnly.  “  Now  you  just 


18  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

watch  and  you  11  see  it  climb  right  out  of  that 
window  over  there  where  the  sun  comes  in.” 

“  It  won’t  go,  Papa,”  the  fiddler  announced 
a  moment  later,  in  a  voice  with  half  a  sob  in  it. 
“That  big  white  dream  won’t  go,  he  says,”  — 
here  the  fiddler’s  tone  sank  to  a  gloomy  squeak, 
—  “  ‘  I  won’t  go  till  Papa  sings  Tournez 
toujours .’  ” 

“Why,  this  is  morning,  Troululu,  and  what 
do  you  think  happened  in  the  night  ?  ” 

“  I  don’t  know,”  said  the  little  fiddler,  sitting 
up  very  straight.  “  What  ?  ” 

“  Somebody  that  you  ’re  going  to  like  very 
much  came  to  see  you.” 

“Santa  Claus?”  asked  the  fiddler  with 
eagerness.  Santa  Claus  was  the  only  friend 
who  was  left  them  at  the  pottery. 

“Well,  Santa  Claus  did  n’t  stay,  you  know 

■ 

he  never  does,”  said  Giacomo;  “but  he  sent 
you  his  love,  and  he  left  you  a  nice,  nice,  big 
cousin  to  play  with.” 

“  And  won’t  she  run  away  when  I  go  up  to 
her  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler. 

A  passing  anger  twitched  the  potter’s  face. 
“  No,  she  ’ll  not  run  away  from  you,”  he  said. 
“  Santa  Claus  would  n’t  bring  a  girl  that  ran 
away.” 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 


19 


“Where  is  she  ?  ”  demanded  the  little  fiddler, 
and  began  clambering  excitedly  across  her  fa¬ 
ther  to  drop  from  the  bed  on  his  side,  where 
she  would  land  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 

“  A-h-h,”  groaned  the  potter  through  set 
teeth. 

“  Can  I  help  yo’,  Uncle  Giacomo  ?  ”  asked 
Clothilde’s  voice  at  the  door. 

“  Come  in,  Clothilde,”  said  Giacomo,  “  come 
in,  and  get  acquainted  with  your  little  fiddler ; 
you  know  you  Ye  the  Santa  Claus  girl  that ’s 
come  to  play  with  her.” 

Clothilde  opened  the  door  and  stood  a  little 
shyly  on  the  threshold.  Troululu  had  come 
round  the  bed  and  stood  with  her  hand  on  the 
footboard,  looking  a  little  shyly  at  Clothilde. 
Presently  she  advanced  a  step.  “  Did  Santa 
Claus  say  I  could  play  with  your  hair  ?  ” 

“  Yas,”  said  Clothilde,  and  her  grave,  brown 
cheeks  suddenly  began  to  dimple.  “  Yas,  my 
mama — I  mean  Santa  Claus  say  my  hairs 
are  not  so  beautiful  that  the  baby  may  not 
play  wid  dem.”  , 

The  fiddler  came  up  and  passed  her  little 
hand  gently  over  Clothilde’s  bent  head.  “  Yo’ 
can  take  hole  of  dem,”  said  Clothilde  gener¬ 
ously,  “  it  does  n’  hurt.” 


20 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  Let  her  take  her  own  time,”  said  Giacomo ; 
“she  ’ll  hurt  you  fast  enough  without  being 
asked  to.  But  now,  if  you  locked  the  door 
last  night  unlock  it  again,  for  the  doctor  prom¬ 
ised  he  would  come  in  early  to  see  how  I  was 
getting  on,  and  then  the  fiddler  will  take  you 
out  to  the  kitchen  and  show  you  the  coffee¬ 
pot.  You  can  make  coffee,  can’t  you?  I ’m 
’most  starved  for  some.” 

“  Oh,  yas,”  said  Clothilde,  “  I  can  make  it,” 
and  she  left  the  room  with  the  little  fiddler 
running  joyously  in  advance  and  pulling  her 
by  the  hand.  Giacomo  dropped  his  head  back 
in  the  pillow  with  a  weary  sigh.  A  sense  of 
relaxation  stole  over  him,  and  when  Clothilde 
and  the  baby  came  back  with  a  cup  of  coffee, 
Clothilde  pulled  the  child  out  of  the  door  again 
with  a  “  sh-sh,”  for  the  potter  was  asleep. 

He  started  awake  when  he  heard  the 
doctor’s  footsteps  outside,  and  the  doctor 
opened  the  door  and  found  him  waiting  with 
a  look  of  quiet  in  his  brilliant  eyes. 

“  Well,  Barse,  your  sister  came  all  right, 
did  she  ?  ”  the  doctor  said  at  once. 

Giacomo  shook  his  head.  “  She  had  better 
sense,”  he  declared.  “  She  sent  me  something 
that  knows  how  to  take  care  of  a  baby  better 
than  any  woman.  Listen,  will  you  !  ” 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 


21 


The  doctor  listened,  and  heard  a  duet  of 
tinkling  childish  laughter  in  the  little  yard  be¬ 
hind  the  pottery. 

“  Now,  I  sent  those  two  out  to  make  me 
some  coffee  a  while  ago,”  Giacomo  went  on, 
“  and  there  ’s  the  coffee,  I  reckon,  standing 
down  by  the  door,  but  how  was  I  to  get  it  ? 
They  brought  it  in  while  I  was  asleep,  I  sup¬ 
pose,  and  now  they  ’re  playing.  But  don’t 
you  know  that  if  a  woman  had  come  here  she ’d 
have  found  something  that  needed  scrubbing 
about  the  house,  and  now  she  would  be  scrub¬ 
bing,  and  scolding  the  baby  for  getting  in  her 
path.  My  mother  and  my  wife  always  scrubbed 
if  I  was  sick,  and  I  know  that  my  sister-in- 
law  would  ;  but  there ’s  something  out  in  the 
yard  this  morning  that  has  a  woman’s  sense 
where  it  is  needed  and  then  is  content  to  be 
a  child.” 

“You  ’re  in  luck,  Barse,”  said  the  doctor, 
feeling  a  little  curious  to  see  that  “  something  ” 
in  the  yard.  “  Who  is  it  out  there,  and  what 
do  you  call  her  ?  ” 

“  My  little  fiddler  calls  her  a  Santa  Claus 
girl,”  said  Giacomo. 

“Good  enough,”  said  the  doctor.  “And 
now  for  that  leg.” 

“  Papa  !  Papa  !  Papa  !  ’’screamed  the  fiddler, 


22 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


bursting  into  the  room,  “  Come  quick,  quick, 
quick !  My  bad  birds  have  all  flown  up  in  the 
trees.  Come  and  catch  them  quick,  quick, 
quick  !  Come  tell  them,  ‘  Go  back,  birds  ;  you 
must  n’t  fly  away,  you  ’re  mediants!' 

Clothilde  followed  in  excitement.  “  Dey  ’ave 
go,”  she  cried,  “but  I  can  get  dem,  me.  I  try 
to  keep  her,  but  she  t’ink  it  is  only  you  who 
can  catch  dem.” 

“  Did  you  open  the  cages  again,  you  little 
fiddler  ?  ”  asked  Giacomo. 

“  I  did  n’t  open  them  on  purpose,  papa,” 
said  the  fiddler,  sobbing.  “  I  did  it  xxnfortu- 
nately.  I  said  to  the  birds,  ‘  Come  out,  birds, 
and  see  my  goodness,’  and  I  made  my  good¬ 
ness  on  my  face  for  them,  and  then  they  were 
bad  mechants  birds  and  flew  up  into  the  trees.” 

“  If  yo’  tell  me  w’ere  is  deir  seeds,”  said 
Clothilde,  “  I  will  give  dem  some  fresh  seeds 
and  some  water  in  deir  cages,  and  I  will  put 
myself  into  de  trees,  and  w’en  dey  are  afraid 
of  me  dey  may  go  home.” 

“  That ’s  the  idea,”  said  the  doctor.  “  Here, 
get  your  uncle  —  is  it  your  uncle  ?  —  some 
fresh  coffee,  and  then  I  ’ll  help  you  catch  the 
birds.” 

“  No,  you  sha’n’t  help  catch  them,”  cried  the 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 


23 


fiddler.  “  My  papa  will  catch  them,  and  not 
you.  I  don’t  like  you,  you  man ;  I  want  you 
to  go  away.  You  hurt  my  papa  /^terday.” 

“  Why,  Troululu,”  said  the  potter,  reproach¬ 
fully,  and  then  he  drew  her  to  him  and  whis¬ 
pered  something  to  her. 

“  No,  you  sha’n’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup,” 
the  fiddler  shrieked,  “  I ’m  going  to  my  Santa 
Claus  girl.  I  don’t  like  you  when  you  say 
that,”  and  she  snatched  herself  away  and  ran 
out  of  the  room.  She  had  never  run  away 
from  Giacomo  before,  for  there  had  never  been 
anybody  to  run  to.  He  drew  his  hand  across 
his  eyes,  as  if  he  could  not  quite  see  what  had 
happened.  “  My  being  sick  makes  her  a  little 
nervous,”  he  explained.  “  Do  you  see  that 
gray  bird  high  up  there  on  the  third  shelf, 
among  those  little  water-monkeys  and  the  frog- 
mugs  ?  I  wish  you ’d  hand  it  down.  I  reckon 
it ’s  too  high  for  Clothilde.  It ’s  got  the  bird¬ 
seed  in  it,  and  I  keep  it  up  there  out  of  the 
baby’s  way  ;  but  she ’s  getting  so  she  can  climb 
’most  to  the  top  of  everything.  I  ’ve  found 
her  as  high  up  as  that  blue  clay  angel,  putting 
one  of  her  dresses  on  it.” 

“You ’ve  got  a  lot  of  queer  things  in  your 
shop,  Barse,”  the  doctor  said,  looking  about 


24 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


him  again  as  he  reached  up  for  the  gray  bird, 
which  proved  to  be  a  sort  of  bottle,  for  which 
the  head  was  a  stopper.  “  I  never  was  here 
till  yesterday,  but  people  say,  you  know,  that 
you  have  an  extraordinary  potter  s  wheel.” 

“  I  have  a  very  good  wheel,  ”  said  Giacomo, 
“  but  it ’s  my  experience  that  a  wheel  is  just  a 
wheel  at  the  best.  The  difference  comes  in  a 
man’s  ideas.  Now,  I  have  something  extraor¬ 
dinary  inside  my  head.” 

“Yes,  I  have  heard  people  say  that  also,” 
said  the  doctor,  and  he  looked  keenly  at  the 
potter,  but  Giacomo  was  intent  on  the  door¬ 
way.  The  doctor  turned  and  saw  the  fiddler 
coming  in  very  slowly,  with  a  cup  of  hot  coffee 
on  a  plate.  Clothilde  was  close  behind,  and 
she  glanced  up  at  the  doctor  with  a  smile. 

“  Here ’s  your  coffee,  papa ;  my  Santa  Claus 
girl  let  me  bring  it,”  cried  the  fiddler.  “She ’s 
a  good  Santa  Claus  girl,  and  you  ’re  a  good 
papa,  and  that ’s  a  good  man,  and  I  ’m  a  good 
Troululu.  See  my  goodness!”  —  and  she 
gathered  up  her  face  into  a  little  smirk  that 
made  the  doctor  and  her  father  laugh. 

Clothilde  had  seen  the  coffee  safely  into  her 
uncle’s  hands  and  was  peering  down  for  a 
glimpse  of  the  goodness,  when  she  started  out 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 


25 


and  flew  into  the  yard.  The  doctor  followed, 
and  saw  her  make  a  passing  dive  for  a  stick  near 
the  doorway,  and  rush  with  it  at  a  cat  which 
crouched  in  the  sun  with  gleaming  eyes,  guard¬ 
ing  something  yellow  between  its  paws.  The 
cat  sprang  away  from  her  and  darted  like  a 
long,  gray  flash  along  the  ground  and  through 
a  hole  in  the  palings.  Clothilde  came  back 
to  the  doctor,  with  a  limp,  fluttering  canary 
in  her  hands. 

“  I  would  like  dat  cat  to  be  kill,”  she  cried. 

The  doctor  took  the  bird.  “  Let  ’s  see 
what  ’s  happened  to  it,”  he  said.  “  Perhaps 
it  has  a  leg  broken,  too,  like  your  uncle.  You 
have  n’t  told  me  yet  if  Barse  is  your  uncle.” 

“  Yas,  he  is  debrudder-in-lawof  mymudder,” 
said  Clothilde. 

“Well,”  said  the  doctor,  “the  bird ’s  leg  is 
broken,  and  a  good  deal  worse  broken  than 
your  uncle’s.  I  don’t  believe  I  want  to  dress 
that  little  leg  without  a  consultation  —  let ’s 
take  it  into  the  house.” 

“I  say,  Barse,”  he  began,  “an  old  patient 
like  you  always  has  to  wait  for  attention  if 
there  is  a  fresh  accident.  Look  here,  a  cat 
had  grabbed  this  little  fellow,  and  would  n’t 
have  left  anything  of  him  if  your  niece  had  n’t 


2  6 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


been  so  quick.  Now,  see  this  little  leg.  That ’s 
a  bad  compound  fracture,  with  more  compli¬ 
cations  than  the  size  of  the  patient  warrants. 
The  merciful  thing  would  be  to  kill  the  bird 
at  once.” 

“That ’s  Trascan,  the  knowingest  one  of 
all,”  said  the  potter.  “  And  he  ’s  got  a  family 
to  take  care  of,  too.  Is  he  bound  to  die,  any- 

~  3  >> 

way : 

“Why,  if  that  leg  was  amputated,  and  the 
little  thing  had  good  care  and  good  luck,  he 
would  get  well  all  right,”  the  doctor  answered. 
“  But  what  kind  of  a  world  do  you  think  this 
would  be  for  a  one-legged  canary?  Now,  if 
he  were  a  crane  or  a  stork — ” 

“I  ’ll  agree  to  make  it  square  with  him 
afterward,”  Giacomo  declared.  “  If  you  ’ll 
just  leave  enough  of  him  for  a  start  I  ’ll  make 
a  new  bird  of  him,  and  he  ’ll  enjoy  it.  It ’s 
lots  better  to  be  mended  than  killed,  when  you 
have  things  depending  on  you,  is  n’t  it,  old 
fellow  ?  ”  and  he  stroked  the  bird’s  head  with 
one  of  his  long,  thin  fingers. 

And  so  the  second  patient  was  operated  on, 
and  Giacomo  had  it  brought  back  to  him  on 
a  little  pad  of  cotton,  and  held  it  in  his  hand 
while  his  own  leg  was  examined  and  the  doc- 


THE  SANTA  CLAUS  GIRL 


2  7 


tor  was  making  him  comfortable.  The  chil¬ 
dren,  at  the  same  time,  were  luring  the  other 
birds  back  to  their  cages  by  means  of  much 
seed  and  water  and  fruit,  much  clamoring  of 
the  excited  little  fiddler  below  the  trees,  and 
much  climbing  of  the  cool-headed  Clothilde 
through  the  branches.  When  order  was  re¬ 
stored  all  through  the  premises,  and  the  doc¬ 
tor  was  about  to  go,  he  took  Clothilde  to  one 
side. 

“  Little  Santa  Claus  girl,”  he  said,  “  it  seems 
to  me  you  are  going  to  have  a  good  deal  to 
look  out  for.  You  want  to  keep  that  baby 
quiet,  if  you  can,  so  that  your  uncle  won’t  get 
too  nervous  and  excited.  It ’s  bad  for  him  to 
have  her  shouting  round  him  in  the  way  she 
does,  and  yet  you  can’t  take  her  very  far  out 
of  his  sight  or  he  ’ll  worry  about  that.  You  ’ll 
just  have  to  be  as  smart  about  it  as  you  can, 
and  whenever  I  have  time  I  ’ll  help  you. 
There ’s  one  thing  you  ’ll  soon  see,”  he  added, 
“  so  I  might  as  well  tell  you,  that  not  another 
soul  in  Potosi  will  come  near  you,  and  you 
need  n’t  expect  people  to  be  friendly  if  you 
happen  to  come  across  them.” 

“W’y  is  dat?”  asked  Clothilde,  looking  at 
him  with  round  and  solemn  eyes. 


28 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  I  don’t  quite  know,”  said  the  doctor  ;  “  per¬ 
haps  you  can  find  out.  Your  uncle ’s  a  queer 
man,  and  they  believe  a  lot  of  stuff  about  him 
—  and  his  wheel.  You ’ve  got  a  level  head, 
I  can  see  that,  and  you  ’re  not  going  to  be 
scared  at  nothing ;  but  I  thought  I ’d  tell  you, 
so  that  if  anybody  happens  to  talk  any  folde- 
rol  to  you,  you  ’ll  not  believe  it.” 

“  It  would  not  be  posseeb’,”  said  Clothilde, 
drawing  herself  up,  “to  believe  anyt’ing  bad 
of  de  own  ’usband  of  my  own  tante  —  aunt. 
I  ’ave  hear  it  and  not  believe  it  already.” 

“What?”  exclaimed  the  doctor.  “I  told 
Philipe  Gomez  not  to  frighten  you  last  night. 
Well,” — he  put  his  hand  on  Clothilde’s  shoul¬ 
der, — “  he  got  the  wrong  girl,  did  n’t  he  ?  I  see 
Santa  Claus  makes  his  girls  out  of  clear  grit, 
and  it ’s  a  good  way.”  Then  he  gave  her  a 
few  directions  for  her  duties  as  nurse.  Fortu¬ 
nately  he  lived  near  enough  to  look  in  several 
times  a  day  as  he  passed,  and  there  was  little 
she  would  need  to  do  for  Giacomo ;  yet,  in 
spite  of  the  doctor’s  praise,  when  he  left  she 
felt  rather  burdensomely  weighted  with  her 
cares  and  trusts. 


CHAPTER  III 


<< 


TOURNEZ  TOUJOURS 


>> 


FTER  her  first  day  with  Clo- 
thilde,  the  little  fiddler  did  not 
wish  to  sleep.  She  was  prob¬ 
ably  afraid  that  Santa  Claus 
would  take  in  the  night  what 
he  had  brought  in  the  night,  and  when  Gia¬ 
como  told  Clothilde  to  undress  her,  the  baby 
threw  herself  on  the  floor  and  cried  in  wrath. 

“Well,  well,”  said  Giacomo,  “after  all,  this 
is  the  first  day  she  ever  had  any  one  younger 
than  I  am  to  play  with.  Just  play  horse  once 
more,  Clothilde,  and  she  ’ll  be  ready  for  bed.” 

So  Clothilde  let  the  baby  take  the  two  long 
braids  of  hair  and  drive  her  in  and  out  among 
the  flower-pots  and  urns  and  baking-dishes 
on  the  floor,  until  the  outside  door  opened  un¬ 
expectedly,  and  the  doctor  walked  in. 

“What?  What  ?”  he  began.  “Working  up 
an  excitement  so  as  to  have  a  bad  night? 


29 


3° 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Here,  you  little  fiddler,  it ’s  time  you  were  in 
bed.” 

Clothilde  stopped,  her  face  flushed  with 
running  and  confusion.  “  It  is  uncle  Giacomo 
dat  wish  dat  I  always  play  de  horse,”  she  said. 

“Yes,”  said  the  potter,  cheerfully,  “I  told 
her  to  take  another  turn.  You  know,  doctor, 
that  my  little  girl  never  has  had  her  fill  of 
playing  in  her  life.” 

“  No  child  ever  had,”  said  the  doctor,  “nor 
grown  person,  either, —  but  say,  she ’s  pulling 
your  niece’s  hair-  out.” 

The  baby  had  been  flicking  Clothilde’s 
braids  over  her  back,  but  when  she  found  that 
Clothilde  really  would  not  go  on,  she  threw  all 
her  weight  on  to  the  hair,  and  dragged  venge- 
fully.  Clothilde  was  reaching  around  and  try¬ 
ing  to  unclasp  her  hands. 

“Troululu!”  called  the  potter,  “you  ’re 
hurting  your  Santa  Claus  girl,  and  she  will  go 
away  if  you  are  n’t  good  to  her.  Let  go  of  her 
hair,  or  I  ’ll  put  you  on  my  wheel  with  the 
clay  —  ” 

“You  ’re  too  sick,”  said  the  fiddler,  calmly. 
She  had  learned  in  the  course  of  the  day  that 
he  was  sick. 

“Troululu!”  said  the  potter.  “Doctor,  I 
reckon  you ’d  better  take  her  off.” 


“TOURNEZ  TOUJOURS  ” 


3i 


The  doctor  did  it  very  promptly.  It  was  a 
long  time  since  he  had  had  any  little  girls,  and 
he  was  sure  that  they  had  never  done  things 
like  that.  He  held  the  baby’s  hands  tight  for 
a  moment.  “  Now,  be  good,”  he  ordered,  as 
he  let  her  go. 

The  fiddler  seemed  more  to  float  away  from 
him  than  to  run ;  she  was  so  angry  that  her 
feet  scarcely  touched  the  floor,  and  she  drifted 
off  as  if  a  wave  were' buoying  her,  until  she 
stumbled  against  a  great  baking-dish  and  fell 
into  it,  screaming  at  the  top  of  her  voice. 

“  Huh  !  ”  said  the  doctor. 

“Yes,”  said  Giacomo,  “she ’s  a  little  fiery, 
but  it ’s  ‘  come  easy,  go  easy  ’  with  her  tem¬ 
pers,  and  she ’s  been  a  good  deal  excited  to¬ 
day.  Clothilde  will  cheer  her  up ;  she  seems 
to  know  how  to  treat  children,  and  I  wish 
you ’d  see  how  Trascan ’s  getting  along.  He ’s 
been  cheeping  a  good  deal  since  you  were 
here,  and  I  don’t  know  whether  he  ’s  just 
lonesome  without  his  leg,  or  whether  it ’s  hurt¬ 
ing  him  more  than  it  ought.” 

The  doctor  picked  the  little  bird  tenderly 
out  of  its  nest  of  cotton,  examined  it  by  the 
lamp,  and  pronounced  that  the  trouble  must 
be  lonesomeness,  as  there  was  nothing  amiss. 
“He  was  worse  off  than  you  were,  Barse,”  he 


32 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


said,  “  but  he  ’ll  get  around  the  first.  What 
kind  of  a  leg  will  you  make  him  —  pottery  ?  ” 

“I  ’d  like  to,”  said  Giacomo,  “it  ’s  about 
the  only  thing  I  ’ve  never  made,  but  I  reckon 
I  ’ll  have  to  use  wood,  because  it  ’s  lighter. 
Look.” 

Clothilde’s  hands  were  sending  a  shadow  dog 
nosing  from  rounded  form  to  form  along  the 
wall,  and  the  little  fiddler  had  somehow  known 
it,  and  had  raised  her  head  and  was  peering 
at  it  through  her  tumbled  hair,  and  there  was 
silence  in  the  room. 

“  I  told  you  this  morning  that  you  were  in 
luck,”  said  the  doctor.  “  Now  I  don’t  suppose 
I  ’ll  be  in  again,  so  I  ’ll  fix  you  up  for  the 
night.” 

When  everything  had  been  done  for  his 
comfort,  the  potter  had  still  something  to  ask. 
“  If  you  ’d  just  bring  my  wheel  up  a  little 
closer,”  he  said,  “  I  reckon  I  ’ll  have  to  teach 
Clothilde  how  to  run  it  to-night.” 

“What?”  said  the  doctor,  “run  the  wheel 
at  night  and  teach  Clothilde, —  what  for?” 

“  It ’s  one  of  the  ways  I ’ve  fallen  into,” 
said  Giacomo,  “and  there  ’ll  be  no  getting 
the  fiddler  to  sleep  without  it.  That  ’s  the 
way  she ’s  gone  to  sleep  ever  since  her  mother 


“TOURNEZ  TOUJOURS” 


33 


died.  When  she ’s  undressed  I  sing  to  her 
and  run  the  wheel.  I ’ve  made  some  mighty 
original  things  when  I  was  putting  her  to 
sleep.” 

The  doctor  drew  up  the  wheel.  “I  ’m  not 
in  a  hurry,”  he  said ;  “  I  guess  I  ’ll  sit  down 
over  in  a  corner,  where  your  little  crab  won’t 
see  me,  and  watch  the  working  of  it.  I  may 
be  wanting  to  recommend  all  the  women  with 
babies  to  buy  themselves  potter’s  wheels.” 

“  They  would  n’t  take  the  trouble  to  run 
them,”  Giacomo  scoffed;  “  they ’d  rather  scrub 
or  sew.  I  ’m  not  going  to  run  it  either  — 
this  month,”  he  added,  with  a  sigh;  “but  it 
won’t  take  Clothilde  long  to  learn  enough  for 
the  fiddler,  and  I  can  do  the  singing.  Come, 
Troululu,  climb  up  beside  me,  and  we  ’ll  teach 
our  Santa  Claus  girl  to  play  Tournez  toujours .” 

Clothilde  went  round  slowly  and  stood  by 
the  wheel.  She  was  very  grateful  to  the  doc¬ 
tor  for  staying ;  for,  with  all  her  bravery,  she 
had  given  the  wheel  a  wide  berth  in  the  day¬ 
time,  and  she  did  not  know  whether  or  not 
she  could  have  touched  it  at  night,  alone  with 
her  uncle  Giacomo’s  white  face  and  his  black 
eyes  and  his  long  black  mustache. 

“  Now,  just  put  your  foot  on  that  treadle 


34 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


under  there,”  said  the  potter,  “and  keep  kind 
of  stepping  along  until  you  get  the  wheel  to 
turning  smoothly  —  no,  no,  don’t  be  so  jerky, 
just  go  up  and  down  regularly  —  make  be¬ 
lieve  your  foot ’s  in  a  rocking-chair  —  that ’s 
a  little  more  like  it  —  there,  keep  trying  until 
you  can  make  it  go  pretty  fast,  for  then  it  will 
begin  to  whiz,  and  that ’s  what  the  fiddler 
likes  to  hear,  just  the  same  as  she  likes  to  see 
the  whirling.  When  you  get  to  going  a  little 
better,  you  can  take  some  of  the  soft  clay  out 
of  that  tub  covered  up  over  there,  and  put  it 
on  the  very  center  of  the  wheel,  and  do  what 
you  please  with  it ;  of  course,  you  can’t  make 
Anything  at  first,  but  I  ’ll  teach  you  by  and 
by.  Balks  once  in  a  while,  don’t  it.” 

Clothilde  stood  treading  away  at  the  wheel, 
which  ran  gustily,  now  fast  and  now  slow,  and 
sometimes  seemed  to  get  out  of  its  connection 
with  the  treadle  and  would  not  go  at  all.  Her 
foot  had  stepped  on  the  bar  gingerly  at  first, 
but  nothing  evil  seemed  to  come  from  it.  The 
wheel  was  a  very  primitive  one,  and  as  Gia¬ 
como  had  partly  made  it  himself,  the  bearings 
of  it  were  not  as  close  and  true  as  those  of  a 
sewing-machine ;  but  otherwise  treading  it  was 
not  much  different  from  running  a  sewing- 


“TOURNEZ  TOUJOURS” 


35 


machine.  Clothilde  had  seen  that  done  once, 
when  a  man  came  up  Cypress  Creek  trying 
to  sell  one.  Nobody  had  money  enough  to 
buy,  but  nobody  called  the  man  names  on  ac¬ 
count  of  it.  Gradually  she  gained  skill  and 
confidence,  and  the  motion  grew  almost  smooth. 
The  potter  began  singing  a  song  that  went 
round  and  round  like  the  wheel,  and  as  he 
sang,  his  light,  cautious  fingers  unfastened  the 
little  fiddlers  dress.  The  fiddler  would  not 
stay  still,  but  if  it  hurt  him  to  have  her  creep¬ 
ing  over  him  he  did  not  say  so,  nor  stop  singing 
the  little  French  song  with  its  recurrent  burden : 
“  Tournez  encore ,  tournez  toujours  ” 

It  was  a  spinning-song,  but  it  fitted  very 
well  with  a  potters  wheel. 

When  the  fiddler  hadunconsciously  wriggled 
out  of  most  of  her  clothing,  it  was  a  problem 
with  Giacomo  how,  as  he  could  not  lift  him¬ 
self,  he  was  to  get  her  into  her  night-dress. 
Finally  he  put  his  two  hands  inside  the  gown, 
and,  spreading  it  open,  looked  through  the 
white  tunnel  that  it  made,  and  changed  the 
song  he  was  singing  with  the  wheel. 

Here  ’s  the  road,  there ’s  the  road, 

Who ’s  on  the  way  ? 


36  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

I  saw  Santa  Claus 
Pass  yesterday. 

Here ’s  the  gate,  there ’s  the  gate; 

Toe !  Toe !  Toe ! 

Don’t  you  hear  Santa  Claus 
Stand  there  and  knock? 

Hurry  in,  scurry  in, 

Come  through  the  gate ; 

You  ’ll  just  see  him, 

If  you  ’re  not  too  late  ! 

“  Where  is  he  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler,  her  black 
head  coming  through  the  neck  of  the  gown. 
“  Did  he  go  ?  ” 

The  potter  buttoned  the  gown  round  her 
throat,  and  smoothed  it  down  about  her.  “  Al¬ 
ways  goes,”  he  said;  “but  I  ’m  going  to  tell 
you  some  more  about  him,  and  you  watch  your 
Santa  Claus  girl  at  the  wheel,  and  see  if  he 
comes  and  talks  to  her.  I  heard  Santa  Claus 
say  one  night,  that  after  long,  long  days, 
when  Christmas  comes,  he  ’ll  bring  a  little 
bit  of  a  wheel,  if  he  can  find  any  little  girl 
that  lies  perfectly  still  at  night  while  her 
papa  sings.” 

“  And  can  I  make  water-monkeys,  and 


“TOURNEZ  TOUJOURS” 


37 


pitchers,  and  vases,  and  —  and  everything  on 
it,  like  you  do  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler. 

“Yes,”  said  Giacomo,  “if  you  are  still,  so 
that  he  brings  it  to  you.” 

The  fiddler  crept  down  beside  him,  and  lay 
like  a  mouse  with  her  bright  black  eyes  fixed 
steadily  on  Clothilde,  while  Giacomo  went 
back  to  the  swaying,  monotonous  “  Tournez 
encore ,  tournez  toujour s,”  until  a  softness  stole 
over  her  face,  and  sleep  smiled  through  the 
vigilance  of  her  eyes. 

“  Tour — nez  en — core , — tour — nez  tou — 
jours ,” —  Giacomo  let  the  words  fade  slowly 
on  his  lips,  and  nodded  for  Clothilde  to  tread 
more  gently  on  the  wheel.  The  fiddler’s  soft, 
regular  breathing  could  be  heard  as  the  other 
sounds  died.  Her  eyes  were  closed,  her  lips 
just  parted,  and  her  little  brown  hands  clasped 
beneath  her  chin. 

The  doctor  tiptoed  out  from  his  corner. 
Giacomo,  too,  had  shut  his  eyes,  and  his  face 
looked  pinched  with  weariness.  Clothilde 
stood  with  her  hand  resting  in  a  friendly  way 
right  on  the  wheel ;  there  was  a  sorrowful 
look  on  her  face.  It  seemed  so  lonesome  to 
think  of  Uncle  Giacomo’s  having  sung  the 
baby  to  sleep  like  that  for  three  years,  with 


38 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


nobody  to  see  how  beautifully  he  did  it.  The 
doctor  motioned  toward  the  doorway,  and  she 
went  outside  with  him. 

“I  — er  —  there  was  something  I  wanted 
to  remind  you  of,  Santa  Claus,”  he  began, 
and  then  he  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder. 
“  We  ’ll  have  to  straighten  this  thing  out  with 
the  people  round  here,”  he  said.  “Your 
uncle  is  a  good  man.  I  would  have  spanked 
that  little  crab.” 


CHAPTER  IV 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER 

N  the  next  few  days  the  doctor 
said  a  good  deal  in  Potosi  about 
the  potter  and  his  baby  and 
Clothilde.  He  did  not  say  that 
if  there  was  a  hoodoo  in  the 
family  it  was  the  baby,  although  he  was  inclined 
to  think  so.  He  merely  told  the  people  that 
Barse  was  a  good  man,  and  that  there  was 
nothing  unusual  about  his  wheel,  except  that 
he  took  the  trouble  to  sing  songs  with  it  to 
humor  his  spoiled  baby  and  put  her  to  sleep. 
His  hearers  only  shook  their  heads,  and  smiled 
as  if  they  knew  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
doctor  did;  and  when  he  asked  them  what  they 
meant,  they  would  not  explain  beyond  saying 
that  Barse  might  be  like  other  people  when  he 
was  sick,  but  not  when  he  was  well.  The  doc¬ 
tor  was  too  quick-tempered  to  question  them 
very  far,  and  he  usually  ended  by  storming  out 


39 


4o 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


a  fair  torrent  of  “  What  ?  What  ?  ”  and  march¬ 
ing  off  without  waiting  for  their  troublesome 
answers.  His  championship  had  the  good 
effect,  however,  of  making  those  who  met 
Clothilde  rather  kindlier  to  her  than  they 
would  have  been  otherwise. 

Clothilde’s  housewifery,  though  free  from 
the  vice  of  scrubbing,  was  a  trifle  haphazard; 
she  and  the  fiddler  had  to  make  frequent  trips 
between  the  pottery  and  the  butchers  and  the 
grocer’s,  for  they  got  things  one  at  a  time 
when  they  thought  of  them,  forgetting  vari¬ 
ous  other  needs  which  they  soon  remembered. 
When  the  two  messengers  from  the  pottery 
entered  a  street,  the  other  children  whisked 
out  of  it  so  quickly  that  it  seemed  as  if  the 
hot  white  road  had  absorbed  them  like  drops 
of  water ;  but  grown  people  were  quite  inclined 
to  make  friends  with  Clothilde  in  a  guarded 
way,  and  to  ask  her  even  more  questions  than 
the  doctor  wanted  to  ask  them. 

One  day,  Philipe  Gomez,  the  man  who . 
had  brought  her  down  from  Cypress  Creek, 
was  lounging  at  the  grocer’s  when  she  went 
there,  and  he  met  her  as  an  old  acquaintance. 

“  ’Ow  is  yo’  uncle  ?  ”  he  asked,  leaning  to- 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER  41 


ward  her,  and  speaking  in  a  confidential  voice, 
when  the  grocer  had  turned  his  back. 

“  He  is  ver’  well/’  Clothilde  answered  stiffly 
and  distinctly. 

“  An  ’yo’  ’ave  seed  not’ing  at  all  of  strange?” 

Clothilde  pulled  down  the  fiddler,  who  was 
climbing  across  the  counter  after  a  cat.  “  I  ’ave 
seed  not’ing  strange  but  de  peopl’  heah,”  she 
retorted.  “  I  tink,  me,  dat  de  peopl’  in  Potosi 
are  de  mos’  strange  an’  de  most’  bad  people 
in  all  de  world.” 

Gomez  was  not  offended ;  he  laughed  at 
her;  and  the  grocer,  who  had  heard,  turned 
around  and  laughed,  too.  “  She  may  change 
her  mind  as  to  who  is  strange  and  bad,”  he  said. 

Clothilde  took  her  bag  of  rice  and  started 
out  with  it,  sweeping  the  baby  up  under  one 
arm,  to  be  sure  where  she  was.  “  W’en  I 
change  my  min’,”  she  said,  “  it  will  be  faw  de 
t’ing  I  see,  an’  not  faw  all  de  terreebl’  foolish¬ 
ness  dat  peopl’  talk.  Be  good,  Troululu,  or 
I  ’ll  put  yo’  on  de  w’eel  w’en  we  get  home  an’ — ” 

The  lounging  creole  turned  grave,  and 
started  after  her.  “  See  heah,”  he  said,  “  I 
am  a  ver’  good  friend  of  yo’ ;  I  laugh,  yas, 
w’en  yo’  get  so  mad,  but  I  t’ink  yo’  a  mighty 


42 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


brave  little  girl,  an’  I  doan’  want  yo’  gettin’ 
into  troubl’.  Yo’  uncle  may  be  like  odder 
peopl’  w’en  he  is  sick,  but  as  I  tole  yo’  at  de 
first,  dat  wheel  is  of  de  devil,  an’  doan’  yo’ 
touch  it.” 

Clothilde  straightened  her  head  until  the 
fiddler,  who  had  slipped  to  the  ground,  caught 
hold  of  her  braids  and  began  to  drive  her. 
She  paid  no  attention,  she  was  trying  to  wither 
Gomez  with  her  superiority.  “  I  am  learning 
to  run  de  w’eel  at  night,  me,”  she  said. 

Something  which  Clothilde  knew  as  a  very 
wicked  French  oath  came  softly  out  of  the 
man’s  mouth.  He  stared  at  her  a  moment, 
then  pulled  himself  together,  and  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  then  stared  again  as  the 
fiddler  whipped  her  away. 

“Yo’  had  ought  to  cross  yo’self,  yas,  w’en 
yo’  say  a  so  bad  word,”  Clothilde  muttered; 
but  she  knew  well  enough  that  he  had  not 
crossed  himself  on  account  of  the  word,  but 
because  he  was  afraid  of  her  when  she  said 
she  was  learning  the  wheel.  Perhaps  she  felt 
a  little  bit  proud  to  think  that  a  grown  man 
like  that  should  be  afraid  of  her,  yet  that  night 
when  she  trod  the  circling  measure  of  “  Tour- 
nez  encore ,  tournez  toujours ,”  she  kept  remem- 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER  43 

bering  the  man’s  horrified  face,  and  it  made 
her  angry,  and,  in  her  turn,  afraid.  She  had 
no  chance  to  forget  it,  for  the  next  day  when 
she  went  on  her  errands,  the  same  look  was 
in  every  pair  of  eyes  she  met,  and  no  one  who 
could  help  it  spoke  her  a  single  word.  After 
that,  as  she  and  the  fiddler  walked  the  roads, 
even  grown  people  shivered  away  in  front  of 
them  like  dry  leaves  before  a  wind. 

Clothilde  was  a  friendly  child,  and  she  was 
used  to  constant  sociability  with  what  neigh¬ 
bors  there  were  on  Cypress  Creek,  so  that 
being  sent  to  Coventry  in  this  way  not  only 
exasperated  her,  but  kept  alive  in  her  a  dread 
of  she  knew  not  what,  and  yet  there  was  such 
a  fascination  about  the  pottery  that  after  her 
first  sharp  resentment  and  nervousness  wore 
away,  she  came  to  have  a  keen  enjoyment  of 
her  isolation  with  Giacomo  and  the  fiddler. 
The  fiddler  was  as  active  as  all  her  little  bro¬ 
thers  and  sisters  in  combination,  and  there 
was  not  much  chance  to  think  of  other  peo¬ 
ple  when  she  spent  most  of  her  time  in  run¬ 
ning  like  a  forest-fire  in  a  gale  to  keep  track 
of  her  little  cousin  ;  but  there  would  have  been 
enough  to  interest  her  even  if  Troululu  had 
been  a  quiet  baby,  for  Giacomo  was  too  rest- 


44 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


less  himself  to  lie  idle  all  day,  and,  with  clay 
on  a  board  before  him,  he  gave  hour  after  hour 
to  making  the  most  wonderful  things  for  the 
children’s  delight. 

If  Troululu  had  been  of  a  more  passive  na¬ 
ture,  Clothilde  would  have  been  perfectly  happy 
merely  to  sit  still  and  watch  her  uncle’s  deft 
fingers  molding,  and  pinching,  and  twisting 
the  clay,  until  suddenly  some  unexpected  an- 
imal  would  step  right  out  of  a  formless  lump, 
all  living  and  perfect,  it  seemed  to  her,  before 
she  saw  how  much  more  Giacomo  could  do  to 
it,  and  how  much  more  alive  and  complete  it 
became.  The  fiddler  liked  to  watch  too  for  a 
little  while;  but  she  soon  tired  of  inaction  and 
began  making  improvements  on  her  father’s 
work,  adding  extra  ears  and  tails  to  the  dogs, 
and  sticking  the  duck’s  bill  into  the  howling 
wolf’s  mouth  until  the  two  were  squeezed  to¬ 
gether  into  the  sticky  lump  out  of  which  the 
potter  had  made  them.  Giacomo  only  laughed 
and  modeled  the  clay  into  a  new  shape ;  but 
Clothilde  would  rather  romp  till  she  dropped 
than  encourage  such  vandalism,  so  they  would 
up  and  away  again. 

“  Where ’s  your  nurse  ?  ”  asked  the  doctor, 
coming  in  and  sitting  down  on  a  big  inverted 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER  45 

crock.  There  were  no  chairs  in  the  pottery, 
for  Giacomo  had  never  been  rich  enough  to 
buy  them  when  he  had  so  many  things  which 
would  do  as  well. 

“  I  think,”  said  the  potter,  “  that  she  and  my 
fiddler  are  building  a  tower  out  of  flower-pots 
back  there  in  the  yard.  I  heard  a  sort  of 
smashing  a  while  ago  that  sounded  like  flower¬ 
pots  getting  too  high  and  toppling  over.” 

“  No  value  to  you  ?  ”  asked  the  doctor.  He 
was  very  warm,  and  was  fanning  himself  vig¬ 
orously  with  his  straw  hat.  August  in  Potosi 
never  lets  you  forget  that  it  is  August. 

“They  may  be  when  I  have  less  of  ’em,” 
said  the  potter. 

“  How  ’s  that  ?  ”  the  doctor  said,  pricking 
up  his  ears.  He  was  very  far  from  believing 
any  “  folderol  ”  about  Giacomo,  yet  Giacomo 
had  queer  ways  of  speaking  and  looking  that 
were  always  setting  the  doctor  on  the  alert. 
For  the  very  inmost  fold  of  the  doctors  mind 
held  the  thought  that  somewhere  there  must 
be  some  kind  of  a  reason  for  people’s  having 
such  strange  ideas.  “  Some  fire  where  there ’s 
so  much  smoke,”  was  the  motto  wrapped  round 
the  thought. 

“  One  of  those  back  rooms  there,”  said  Gia- 


46 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


como,  “  is  full  to  the  ceiling  with  flower-pots — 
just  plain,  round,  slanting  flower-pots.  They 
won’t  all  be  sold  in  two  life-times,  here  where 
people  grow  their  plants  mostly  out  of  doors.” 

“What  did  you  make  ’em  for?”  asked  the 
doctor. 

“  I  was  mad,”  said  the  potter.  “  It  was  when 
the  baby  was  first  born,  and  one  day  I  came  in 
and  found  my  wife  lying  here  and  crying.  You 
see  those  two  big  green  dragons  fighting  on 
the  top  shelf?  You  ’d  never  guess  it,  but 
they  ’re  flower-pots,  and  my  wife  had  been 
lying  here  and  looking  at  them,  and  when  I 
asked  her  what  the  trouble  was  she  said  we ’d 
never  have  money  enough  to  raise  Louise  — 
that ’s  the  fiddler  —  if  I  kept  on  making  green 
dragons  instead  of  common  sort  of  pots  that 
people  would  buy.  Well,  it  was  unreasonable 
of  me,  for  lying  here  now  I ’ve  looked  at  those 
dragons  until  I  ’m  tired  of  them  myself, —  I 
can  see  now  that  their  necks  are  too  long, — 
but  to  have  my  wife  crying  about  ’em  made 
me  mad,  an’  I  just  drew  out  my  wheel  and 
rushed  in  on  plain  flower-pots.  You  ought 
to  have  seen  how  fast  I  got  to  making  ’em; 
and  I  made  ’em,  and  I  baked  ’em,  and  I  stacked 
’em  up  until,  the  day  before  the  fiddler  was 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER  47 

christened,  I  found  my  wife  crying  again.  She 
said  she  did  n’t  see  how  the  baby  would  ever 
have  a  chance  to  play  if  all  the  rooms  in  the 
pottery  were  stacked  full  of  pots.” 

“  Huh  !  ”  said  the  doctor,  sympathetically. 

“  I  Ve  been  mighty  sorry  for  my  wife  since 
I  Ve  been  lying  here,”  Giacomo  said.  “  I 
don’t  believe,  though,  I  ever  did  another  thing 
in  my  life  to  spite  her,  and  I  made  that  all 
right  with  her,  too.” 

“  How?  ”  the  doctor  questioned. 

“Why,  I  told  her  we ’d  just  let  the  baby 
play  with  the  pots  until  she  broke  enough  to 
make  room  for  herself.  My  wife  got  to  laugh¬ 
ing  over  that,  and  we  never  had  any  more  dis¬ 
agreements  at  all.  But  if  things  in  heaven 
are  fixed  so  that  she  can  look  down  and  see 
what  a  hole  Troululu  is  making  in  them  she 
must  be  mighty  happy  about  it.  It  was  those 
pots  that  first  got  me  into  the  habit  of  work¬ 
ing  nights,  and  then,  little  as  she  was,  the  fid¬ 
dler  took  a  fancy  to  seeing  me,  and  so  I  ’ve 
kept  it  up.  How  long  do  you  suppose  it  ’ll 

be,  doctor,  before  I  can  get  at  my  wheel 

•  }} 
again  r 

“  Several  weeks  yet,”  the  doctor  answered. 

“Well,  but  I  can’t  stand  that,  you  know,” 


48 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


said  Giacomo.  “  Since  I  Ve  been  here  so 
still  my  head  has  simply  swarmed  with  new 
shapes  I  want  to  try ;  they  go  along  in  front 
of  me  like  a  procession  all  the  while.  I  tell 
you  if  I  don’t  have  a  chance  to  work  some  of 
them  off  on  the  wheel,  something ’s  going  to 
break. —  Oh,  Clothilde  !  ” 

The  door  opened  promptly,  and  Clothilde 
put  her  head  in.  There  was  a  flower-pot  on 
top  of  her  head,  and  she  looked  like  Joan  of 
Arc.  “  W’at  yo’  want,  Uncle  Giacomo?”  she 
asked. 

Giacomo  had  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow, 
and  his  black  eyes  were  full  of  excited  pur¬ 
pose.  “You  just  draw  that  wheel  up  as  close 
as  you  can  get  it  to  me,”  he  began;  “and, 
doctor,  would  you  mind  helping  me  to  shift 
over  to  the  edge  of  the  bed  ?  And  you,  Trou- 
lulu,  let  go  of  Clothilde’s  dress  and  show  me 
your  goodness;  I  ’m  going  to  work.  Now, 
Clothilde,  that ’s  right,  bring  over  a  big  lump 
of  clay, —  do  you  see,  you  ’re  going  to  be  my 
feet  and  stand  and  tread  for  me,  and  I  ’ll  reach 
over  and  make  such  things  as  you  never  saw 
in  your  life.” 

“What?  what?”  cried  the  doctor.  “I 
don’t  know  about  that.”  But  nevertheless  he 


CLAY  IN  THE  HANDS  OF  THE  POTTER  49 

helped  Giacomo  toward  the  edge  of  the  bed 
and  then  drew  away  to  watch. 

Giacomo  sat  up.  A  bright  spot  came  into 
each  of  his  cheeks,  he  pushed  the  disordered 
mane  back  from  his  forehead,  draped  his  mous¬ 
tache  over  his  ears,  and  leaned  forward  reach¬ 
ing  out  his  long  thin  hands  for  the  clay.  It 
was  in  good  condition,  for  Clothilde  had  kept 
it  moistened  under  his  direction.  At  first  he 
kneaded  and  shaped  it  lovingly,  then  dropped 
it  on  the  center  of  the  wheel.  He  had  few 
tools,  and  what  he  had  he  scarcely  used,  but 
placed  his  two  hands  on  the  whirling  clay  and 
forced  it  up  between  them  into  a  cylinder,  now 
pushing  in  his  hands  toward  the  base;  now 
toward  the  top,  to  make  a  bulging  form ;  now 
pressing  it  down  into  cozy  squat  lines ;  now 
lifting  and  inspiring  it  into  slender  curves. 
He  was  romping  with  his  skill.  The  clay 
seemed  to  live  as  he  handled  it,  and  his  eyes 
grew  brighter  and  brighter  as  the  ideas  that 
he  had  been  hoarding  crowded  to  his  supple 
finger  tips. 

Clothilde  and  the  doctor  watched  him  si¬ 
lently,  and  Clothilde  did  not  dare  to  look 
across  at  the  doctor,  for  the  potters  joy  in  his 
wheel  made  her  shrink  at  heart.  But  Trou- 


50  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

lulu  crept  beneath  the  corner  of  the  bed  and 
bobbed  up  between  Clothilde  and  her  father 
like  a  toy  on  springs.  Giacomo  dropped  the 
clay  and  looked  down  at  her,  opening  his  arms 
to  let  her  come  still  nearer  him. 

“  I  did  n’t  knock  down  the  tower  and  break 
all  your  pots  on  purpose,  Papa,”  she  declared; 
“  I  did  it  unfortunately,  because  my  bad  Santa 
Claus  girl  made  them  so  high  I  could  n’t  reach. 
My  Santa  Claus  girl  was  bad  and  I  was  good, 
—  see  my  goodness !  ” 

Her  queer  little  face  gathered  itself  into  its 
most  alluring  smile.  The  potter  bent  and 
kissed  her.  “  That ’s  a  good  Troululu  !  ”  he 
said.  “  My  little  fiddler  is  the  best  of  all  the 
girls.” 

“Yes,”  the  doctor  muttered  to  Clothilde, 
“  she  ’s  afraid  now  of  the  pint  cup.  Smart 
child  —  the  little  crab.” 

But  Clothilde  was  thinking  of  other  things. 
“  Is  Uncle  Giacomo  well,”  she  asked,  “  dat  yo’ 
let  him  run  de  w’eel  ?  ” 


CHAPTER  V 


A  WHITE  GLOW  IN  THE  DARK 

N  the  night  Clothilde  was 
startled  from  her  sleep  by  a 
banging  of  doors  and  chatter¬ 
ing  of  windows.  A  great  wind 
was  sweeping  round  the  pot¬ 
tery,  and  sheets  of  rain  washed  against  it. 
Just  as  she  wakened,  a  twisting  dart  of  light¬ 
ning  cut  the  night  in  two  with  a  crash,  and 
showed  her  the  storm.  Clothilde  buried  her 
face  in  the  pillows  and  stuffed  her  fingers  in 
her  ears,  but  there  are  so  many  dreadful  things 
which  may  happen  when  one’s  ears  are  closed 
that  pretty  soon  she  drew  her  fingers  partly 
away  and  listened.  The  windows  had  not 
ceased  struggling,  and  the  rain  dashed  like 
hail  against  them ;  but  the  intense  darkness 
was  unbroken.  The  lightning  had  been  one 
of  those  sharp,  single  bolts  which  sometimes 


SI 


52  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

come  in  a  storm  and  seem  to  have  a  special 
purpose  in  their  coming. 

As  she  lay  there,  no  longer  exactly  afraid, 
but  very  lonely  in  the  passionate,  black  night, 
Clothilde  remembered  the  sound  of  slam¬ 
ming  which  had  first  awakened  her.  The 
wind  must  have  opened  one  of  the  doors,  for 
she  had  fastened  them  all  before  she  went  to 
bed.  She  got  up  silently  and  slipped  into  her 
dress.  She  was  glad  to  have  some  reason  for 
going  into  her  uncle’s  room,  where  the  little 
lamp  would  be  shedding  a  soft  fantasy  of  light 
and  shade  across  the  pottery-strewn  floor  to 
the  crowded  walls.  She  had  put  the  lamp  on 
a  shelf,  in  the  middle  of  a  row  of  puzzle  mugs, 
now  that  the  wheel  had  been  drawn  up  so 
close  to  her  uncle’s  bed.  She  smiled  as  she 
recalled  that  first  night  when  her  heart  had 
knocked  with  fear  at  all  the  lurking  shapes  in 
the  room.  They  had  become  so  familiar  that 
even  without  her  uncle  and  the  fiddler  they 
would  be  reassurance. 

Though  the  beating  of  the  rain  covered  ev¬ 
ery  sound  she  made,  she  went  tip-toeing  to 
the  door  and  opened  it  inch  by  inch  to  be  very 
sure  of  not  awakening  the  fiddler,  who  had  a 
way  of  starting  up  at  the  creak  of  hinges,  or 


A  WHITE  GLOW  IN  THE  DARK 


53 


even  at  the  gentle  plash  of  bare  feet  on  the  floor, 
though  she  was  evidently  sleeping  through  the 
storm.  Clothilde  caught  her  breath  tremu¬ 
lously  as  the  door  moved  under  her  hand,  for 
it  was  opening  into  darkness. 

“Wind  blowed  de  lamp  out,”  she  told  her¬ 
self.  She  opened  a  little  further,  and  there 
came  a  faint  light  from  another  direction  than 
the  lamp.  “  But !  ”  she  murmured,  and  softly 
flung  wide  the  door. 

A  weird  pale  vision  filled  the  center  of  the 
room.  Her  uncle’s  face  was  lifted  from  the 
bed,  and  bent  with  shadowy  eyes  upon  the 
wheel,  and  the  wheel  shone.  A  light  came 
from  it  and  spread  up  toward  her  uncle’s  face 
and  dimly  out  into  the  darkness.  It  was  a 
still,  strange  light  that  seemed  to  live  upon 
the  wheel,  and  the  wheel  lived,  too,  and  turned 
swiftly  and  noiselessly  with  no  foot  to  tread  it, 
and  her  uncle  reached  his  long,  thin  hands 
down  toward  the  cold,  living  brightness,  and 
moved  them  in  and  out  as  if  he  were  shaping 
something  out  of  the  half-lighted  air.  His  face 
smiled  above  his  hands. 

Clothilde  thought  she  was  crying  out,  but 
the  words  whispered  between  her  lips.  She 
could  not  stir,  nor  do  anything  but  look  at  the 


54 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


shining  wheel,  and  at  her  uncle’s  white,  white 
face,  with  the  great  black  shadows  for  his 
eyes.  Her  heart  stood  so  still  that  when  at 
last  it  bounded  to  its  work,  the  first  beat  was 
an  unexpected  blow,  and  she  almost  fell.  She 
clung  to  the  casing  of  the  doorway,  while  her 
breath  came  hard  and  quick,  and  her  head 
whirled  like  the  white  whirling  thing  that  she 
saw  though  she  had  clenched  her  eyes.  Sud¬ 
denly  she  gathered  herself  together  and  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross  as  the  man  had  done. 
Then  she  closed  the  door  even  more  carefully 
than  she  had  opened  it,  ran  across  to  her  own 
window,  flung  it  up,  and  dropped  outside.  The 
wind  and  the  rain  caught  her  and  swept  her 
with  them  through  the  wildness  of  the  night. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  she  began  to 
wonder  where  she  was.  On  every  side  of  her, 
against  the  dark,  she  saw  her  uncle’s  face  and 
the  ghostly,  shining  wheel.  She  shuddered 
from  head  to  foot  as  she  thought  how  she  had 
turned  it,  and  rested  her  hand  on  it,  and 
boasted  that  she  could  run  it,  and  been  angry 
with  the  man  who  said  it  was  of  the  devil. 
She  had  even  threatened  to  put  the  baby  on 
it  and  make  her  into  a  pint  cup.  The  baby ! 
Giacomo,  sang  her  to  sleep  with  the  devil’s 


A  WHITE  GLOW  IN  THE  DARK 


55 


wheel,  and  she  must  often  and  often  have 
wakened  in  the  night  and  seen  it  shine  like 
that  and  not  have  been  afraid. 

Such  a  great  sorrow  came  aching  into  Clo- 
thilde’s  throat,  such  a  longing  for  her  mother, 
and  all  her  little  brothers  and  sisters,  who  had 
never  been  sung  to  sleep  to  the  whir  of  a  shin¬ 
ing  wheel,  that  all  the  strength  of  fear  went 
out  of  her,  and  she  took  a  few  uncertain  steps, 
groping  in  the  dark.  There  was  a  fence  at 
the  side  of  the  road ;  in  reaching  about  her 
she  touched  it,  and,  as  if  it  were  some  sort  of 
protection,  she  sank  down  beside  it,  drenched, 
shivering,  and  crying  as  if  her  heart  would 
break. 

The  more  she  cried,  the  more  the  hot  tears 
surged  up  into  her  eyes.  She  loved  her  uncle, 
she  loved  the  baby,  she  loved  the  queer  old 
pottery.  She  had  even  come  to  love  the 
wheel  —  and  they  all  belonged  to  wickedness 
and  mystery,  for  the  wheel  shone  by  itself  in 
the  dark.  The  people  were  right,  and  her 
uncle  was  a  hoodoo  —  the  own  husband  of  her 
own  aunt  was  a  bad  man,  who  made  things  do 
what  they  could  not  do,  and  brought  bad  luck. 
It  was  true  that  he  had  been  like  other  people 
while  he  had  been  sick,  but  now  that  he  had 


56 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


grown  well  enough  to  touch  the  wheel,  the 
wheel  had  begun  to  run  without  treading,  and 
to  shine  like  the  moon  through  mist.  After  a 
while  she  put  out  her  arms  to  the  fence  and 
hugged  herself  close  to  it,  and  wondered  what 
her  mama  would  say  when  she  knew  that 
Uncle  Giacomo  was  a  hoodoo,  and  if  her  mama 
would  scold, her  for  running  away  and  leaving 
a  hoodoo  with  a  broken  leg  all  alone  in  the 
night. 

When  she  thought  of  Giacomo’s  broken  leg, 
it  made  her  remember  the  doctor,  and  a  rush 
of  comfort  went  through  her.  She  would  go 
to  the  doctor’s  house,  and  tell  the  doctor  all 
about  it,  and  get  him  to  send  her  back  to  Cy¬ 
press  Creek.  But  no,  she  could  see  her  mama’s 
bright  eyes  look  scornful,  and  could  hear  her 
say:  “So  yo’  had  de  fear  to  be  hurt.  Yo 
have  not  grow  so  grande  as  I  t’ought  yo’  had, 
po’  littl’  Clothilde  !  ”  Yes,  her  mama  would 
say  something  like  that,  for  way  up  on  Cypress 
Creek,  where  every  one  was  good,  nobody 
would  believe  that  the  own  husband  of  an  own 
sister  was  a  hoodoo.  But  then  Clothilde  could 
find  the  doctor,  and  take  him  with  her  to  look 
softly  in  and  see  the  wheel,  and  perhaps  he 
could  make  her  mama  believe.  She  could 


A  WHITE  GLOW  IN  THE  DARK 


57 


almost  feel  his  warm  hand  on  her  shoulder, 
and  she  knew  what  he  would  say  to  her  when 
she  told  him;  it  would  be:  “What?  What? 
Well,  Santa  Claus,  I  reckon  I  ’d  better  look 
in  and  see  that  wheel.” 

The  thought  of  the  doctor  made  Clothilde 
ashamed  to  have  run  so  far,  and  cried  so  long 
like  a  senseless  thing  in  the  dark.  She  felt 
warm  and  brave  again,  and  she  jumped  to  her 
feet,  and  strained  her  eyes  for  anything  to  tell 
her  where  she  was.  The  blackness  was  ut¬ 
terly  without  form.  Her  feet  could  feel  the 
hard  road,  and  sometimes  as  she  weaved  to 
one  side  in  following  it  her  hand  found  a  fence, 
sometimes  only  trees,  once  or  twice  the  wall 
of  a  house.  She  crept  back  from  the  houses, 
for  she  was  far  too  proud  to  take  refuge  with 
any  one  but  the  doctor.  She  was  so  completely 
bewildered  that  she  did  not  know  whether  she 
had  turned  toward  the  pottery  or  away  from 
it,  so  she  could  only  follow  along  the  road, 
and  hope  to  come  against  something  that  she 
knew. 

The  road  carried  her  up  a  great  many  little 
hills  and  down  into  a  great  many  little  valleys 
where  small  noisy  streams  of  rain-water  poured 
curling  across  her  feet.  She  had  gone  hither 


58 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


and  yonder  in  Potosi,  but  all  of  her  errands 
had  carried  her  over  level  ground,  and  if  she 
had  noticed  the  hills  she  would  have  known 
that  every  step  was  taking  her  farther  from 
the  pottery  and  from  the  doctor ;  but  it  hap¬ 
pens  that  Cypress  Creek  runs  through  a  bro¬ 
ken  country,  and  the  little  rises  and  descents 
of  the  road  felt  so  natural  that  she  thought 
nothing  about  them,  and  only  wondered  if  she 
would  ever  come  to  anything  that  she  knew, 
or  if  morning  was  going  to  be  very  much 
longer  in  breaking  through  the  dark.  It  had 
stopped  raining,  but  not  a  star  crept  out  into 
the  night  to  keep  her  company.  Even  her 
vision  of  Giacomo  and  the  wheel  faded  out ; 
she  was  too  tired  to  be  afraid,  she  was  only 
heartsick  and  helpless,  and  all  alone  in  a  great 
dense  blackness  that  would  not  let  her  go. 

She  plodded  up  yet  another  hill  and  stopped 
sharply  at  the  top.  There  was  light  in  front 
of  her,  pale  shimmering  ranks  of  light  shot 
through  with  sudden  stars.  She  stood  and 
gazed,  her  head  lifted  and  her  hands  clenched. 
As  far  as  her  eyes  could  search,  the  white 
troops  were  hurrying  toward  her  like  vague 
star-jeweled  ghosts.  Clothilde  watched  and 
listened,  stiff  with  fear.  She  thought  that 


A  WHITE  GLOW  IN  THE  DARK 


59 


they  were  the  same  as  the  shining  of  the 
wheel,  though  down  below  her  each  one  broke 
into  a  million  pearls,  shattering  itself  with  a 
long  moaning  sough. 

It  was  Pontomoc  Bay  that  stretched  before 
her,  with  its  phosphorescent  breakers  rolling 
in  upon  the  beach.  Suddenly  Clothilde  knew 
it  and  struck  her  hands  together.  “  It  is  de 
sea,  de  sea!”  she  cried  aloud;  “an  de  bon 
Diea  make  de  light !  Oh,  sure,  sure  !  Father 
Henri  tole  me  dat  de  bon  Dieu  make  de 
light !  —  An’  dat  is  de  way  wid  de  w’eel,”  she 
thought  on  eagerly.  “It  is  not  dat  Uncle 
Giacomo  is  bad  dat  de  light  come  faw  him,  it 
is  because  he  is  so  good  to  de  baby  dat  de 
bon  Dieu  sends  light  to  his  w’eel  on  de  dark 
nights  w’en  de  win’  blows  out  de  lamp,  jus  de 
way  dat  brightness  comes  to  de  waves  of  de 
sea  w’en  de  stars  is  hid.  I  wish  I  had  de  sense 
of  dat  littF  fiddler  who  mus’  have  seed  de  w’eel  ' 
many,  many  times  in  de  night,  an  ’  has  never 
had  de  t’ought  to  be  afraid.” 

It  was  so  good  to  believe  in  her  uncle  again 
that  Clothilde  forgot  that  she  was  alone  and 
wet  and  tired  and  did  not  know  her  way. 
The  pottery  must  be  somewhere  at  the  other 
end  of  the  long  road  that  she  had  come,  and 


6o 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


perhaps  it  would  be  morning  soon.  She 
turned  a  happy  face  back  into  the  darkness, 
and  groped  her  steps  sturdily  until  a  few  stars 
came  out,  and  then  the  east  turned  gray. 
She  saw  where  she  was,  and  flew  like  a  bird 
along  the  deserted  streets.  Her  window  was 
open  just  as  she  had  left  it.  She  climbed 
in  noiselessly,  and  went  to  her  uncle’s  door 
and  listened.  There  was  not  a  sound  to  be 
heard,  so  she  took  off  her  wet  clothing  and 
covered  herself  up  in  bed,  where  she  fell  asleep 
and  dreamed  many  strange  things  until  the 
sun  was  high  and  the  little  fiddler  was  climb¬ 
ing  up  beside  her. 

“Hands,  don’t  touch  Clothilde,”  the  fiddler 
was  saying  as  she  patted  Clothilde’s  face. 
“You  must  be  good,  little  hands,  and  not 
wake  up  my  Clothilde,  ’cause  my  Clothilde  is 
so  good.” 

Clothilde  opened  her  eyes  and  drew  the 
little  fiddler  into  her  arms  and  hugged  her 
tight.  “  Yo’,  Troululu,”  she  said;  and  the 
fiddler  printed  a  great  big  ecstatic  kiss  upon 
her  cheek. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS 

FTER  Troululu  had  wakened 
Clothilde  she  went  back  to  get 
her  handful  of  garments.  Clo¬ 
thilde  slipped  into  her  own 
dress,  and  went  into  her  uncle’s 
room  before  the  little  night-gowned  figure  had 
returned. 

“  What  for  did  you  put  on  a  fresh  dress  ?  I 
want  a  fresh  dress !  ”  the  fiddler  cried  at  sight 
of  her. 

Clothilde  blushed,  wishing  that  anything 
was  ever  unnoticed  by  those  quick  eyes.  The 
clothing  she  had  worn  the  night  before  was 
still  wet  from  the  rain.  “  In  co’se  yo’  shall 
have  a  fresh  dress,”  she  answered.  “  I  t’ought 
it  was  time,  me,  dat  we  be  mo’  clean.  I  ’ave 
always  hear  dat  Santa  Claus  like  bes’  de  cleanes’ 
littT  girls.” 

“  But  his  little  angels  are  not  clean,”  said 

61 


62 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Troululu.  “They  come  down  the  chimney 
with  him  and  they  get  so  b-black .  Last  night 
I  dreamed  that  three,  four,  nine,  little  angels 
came  down  the  chimney,  and  they  had  to  turn 
themselves  —  so  —  and  shake  off  the  black.” 

6‘  But  it  is  not  Santa  Claus  who  has  the  little 
angels,”  Clothilde  corrected  eagerly,  “it  is 
de  bon  Dieu .” 

“Who  is  the  bon  Dieu f  ”  asked  Troululu. 

Clothilde  looked  across  at  her  uncle. 

“The  bon  Dieu  lives  in  heaven,  and  takes 
*  care  of  all  the  little  angels,  Troululu,”  the 
potter  answered  smiling ;  “  but  I  think  he 

lends  some  of  them  to  Santa  Claus,  Santa 
Claus  is  so  good.” 

Clothilde  puckered  her  eyebrows.  Her 
mother  and  Father  Henri  had  taught  her  all 
about,  the  bon  Dieu  and  the  angels,  and  her 
mother  had  told  her  about  Santa  Claus  twice 
—  le  petit  Noel ,  they  called  him.  She  had 
told  her  first  when  she  was  very  little,  and 
then  again  in  a  less  delightful  way  when  she 
had  grown  “more  grande  ”  ;  this  mixing  him 
up  with  the  bon  Dieu  and  the  angels  was 
very  puzzling  to  her,  but  Troululu  was  jump¬ 
ing  up  and  down  with  an  ecstatic  face,  and 
there  was  not  much  time  to  think  about  it 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS 


63 


“  I ’m  going  to  be  good,  good,  good  !  ”  the 
fiddler  cried,  “  and  then  I  ’ll  go  to  the  chimney 
and  I  ’ll  ask  the  bon  Dieu  and  Santa  Claus 
to  lend  me  some  of  their  little  angels,  and  then 
when  you  want  Clothilde  to  turn  the  wheel 
I  ’ll  play  with  my  little  angels,  and  they  ’ll  not 
run  away,  and  we  ’ll  be  good,  good,  good,  and 
I  ’ll  not  pull  their  hair,  and  when  I  want  them 
to  do  anything  I  ’ll  say  ‘  Thank  you,’  and  ‘  If 
you  please  !’  ” 

“That ’s  a  very  good  idea,”  said  the  potter. 

Just  then  the  doctor  came  in.  “  Tell  him, 
Papa,”  whispered  the  fiddler,  “  tell  him  about 
my  little  angels.” 

“  She ’s  going  to  be  good,  good,  good,  doc¬ 
tor,”  said  Giacomo,  “so  that  the  little  angels 
of  Santa  Claus  will  come  and  play  with  her.” 

The  doctor  gave  one  of  his  sharp,  down¬ 
ward  glances  at  the  fiddler.  She  was  still  in 
her  little  white  gown,  and  she  was  looking 
shyly  up  at  him  through  her  black  elf  locks. 
“  Tell  him,”  she  whispered  again,  “that  I  won’t 
pull  their  hair,  and  I  ’ll  say  ‘Thank  you,’  and 
‘  If  you  please  !  ’  ” 

“  Hu-uh,”  said  the  doctor  softly,  “what  *s 
got  into  the  little  crab  ?  ” 

“Just  her  goodness,”  said  Giacomo;  “it 


64 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


strikes  in  like  that  sometimes.  Never  mind 
dressing  her  till  you  ’ve  made  the  coffee,  Clo- 
thilde  ;  I  was  awake  a  good  deal  in  the  storm, 
and  I  ’m  most  starved  for  some.” 

As  Clothilde  started  for  the  kitchen  Trou- 
lulu  looked  wistfully  at  the  long  tangled  braid 
hanging  down  her  back.  “What  for  is  your 
hair  all  wet?  ”  she  cried  suddenly. 

Clothilde  was  just  outside  the  open  door, 
and  she  pretended  not  to  hear ;  but  the  doctor 
muttered,  “What?  ”  and  looked  after  her  and 
frowned.  Then  he  turned  impatiently  to  the 
potter.  “You  Ve  tired  yourself  out,”  he  said. 
“  I  knew  how  it  would  be  when  I  saw  how 
you  marched  on  that  wheel  yesterday.  There ’s 
this  much  about  it,  Barse :  if  you  don’t  want 
to  work  yourself  into  a  fever  and  be  tied  up 
here  a  lot  of  extra  weeks,  you  must  put  the 
brakes  on  this  restlessness  of  yours.  And 
there  ’s  more  than  your  getting  well  to  be 
thought  of.  No  one  ever  seems  to  be  within 
shouting  distance  of  this  pottery  when  help  is 
needed,  and  yet  if  there  was  an  eye  at  the 
window  all  the  time  it  could  n’t  see  more  than 
they  all  seem  to  know  of  what ’s  going  on 
here;  and  I  ’ll  tell  you  this,  Potosi  folks  don’t 
think  it  looks  well  for  a  man  with  a  broken 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS 


65 


leg  to  have  any  desire  to  work.  I  believe 
they  ’ll  make  it  troublesome  for  you  if  you 
don’t  lie  quiet.” 

The  bright  red  spots  which  had  come  into 
Giacomo’s  cheeks  the  day  before  flamed 
sharply  out  of  his  pallor.  He  gave  his  mus¬ 
tache  a  twist  above  his  ears.  “I  ’ll  work 
when  I  please,  and  how  I  please,  if  all  the 
crazy  fools  in  Potosi  stand  night  and  day  at 
my  window,”  he  cried.  “  No, —  you  ’ve  treated 
me  as  a  good  man  treats  a  human  being,  doc¬ 
tor,  and  I  don’t  forget  it,  but  you  can’t  tell  me 
what  they  say  or  that  they  ’ll  make  trouble 
for  me,  if  you  want  me  to  keep  quiet.  I  ’ll 
get  up  leg  and  all,  and  I  ’ll  fight  the  whole 
miserable  cowardly  outfit  that  never  tells  me 
what  it  has  against  me,  but  would  leave  me 
and  my  helpless  baby  alone  here  to  die  if  it 
was  n’t  for  you  and  for  that  one  little  girl, 
that ’s  worth  all  the  people  in  forty  Potosis. 
Have  n’t  they  talked  to  her  too  !  Have  n’t  I 
seen  the  look  on  her  face  when  she  came  in 
sometimes !  And  not  a  word  has  she  said, 
and  not  a  word  have  I  dared  ask  her,  for  I 
knew  that  if  she  told  me  I ’d  go  wild  like  this, 
and  it  would  set  me  back.  But  when  I  get 
well  I  ’ll  go  out  among  them,  and  —  after  that 


66 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


—  I  ’ll  take  my  fiddler  —  ”  His  voice  had 
grown  hoarse,  but  his  cheeks  and  eyes  burned 
clear.  He  put  his  hand  to  his  throat,  and  sank 
back  against  his  pillows.  “  Great  heavens, 
doctor,”  he  said,  “  do  you  think  I  ’m  going  to 
keep  on  living  in  this  hole,  where  other  chil¬ 
dren  run  from  my  child  as  if  she  was  an  ill 
omen,  and  all  the  pleasure  of  her  little  life  has 
to  come  from  the  harmless  lies  I  tell  her,  and 
the  beautiful  fancies  of  her  little  head,  that  I 
have  n’t  the  heart  to  say  are  just  lies  too  ?  I 
may  be  queer  and  cranky  and  half  cracked,  as 
they  used  to  call  me,  and  I  may  care  more  for 
my  own  thoughts  and  the  working  of  them  into 
clay  than  I  care  for  other  people, —  common 
people, —  but  when  it  comes  to  my  child  —  ” 
The  doctor  put  a  warm  firm  hand  onto  the 
cold  shaking  ones  which  Giacomo  had  gripped 
together  above  the  bed-clothes.  “There,  I 
know;  that’ll  do,  Barse,”  he  said.  “I  hear 
the  children  coming  back  with  the  coffee.” 
He  stepped  out  into  the  little  yard  which 
separated  the  kitchen  from  the  pottery. 
“Take  the  cup  to  your  uncle,”  he  told  Clo- 
thilde,  “  and  then  leave  the  fiddler  with  him 
and  come  back  here.  I  want  to  talk  to  you.” 
He  paused  an  instant  undecidedly,  and  then 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS 


67 


lifted  Troululu  up  between  his  hands.  “  Little 
crab,”  he  asked,  “are  you  going  to  stay  with 
papa,  and  tell  him  all  about  your  little  angels?” 

“  Yes,”  the  fiddler  cried,  with  her  goodness 
still  shining  from  her  face,  “  and  I ’m  going  to 
get  him  to  tell  Santa  Claus  and  the  bon  Dieu 
that  I  want  three,  four,  nine  little  angels  all 
with  their  fresh  dresses  on,  and  Santa  Claus 
must  n’t  let  them  get  black  in  the  chimney. 
Won’t  you  tell  him,  doctor,  you  and  papa  and 
Clothilde  all  tell  him  not  to  let  them  get  black 
in  the  chimney  !  ” 

“That ’s  right,”  said  the  doctor;  “and  re¬ 
member  not  to  pull  their  hair.”  He  set  her 
down,  and  she  flew  ahead  of  Clothilde,  calling : 

“  Four,  six,  nine  little  angels,  Papa  ;  I  want 
nine !  ” 

Clothilde  came  back  in  a  moment.  “  I  t’nk,” 
she  said,  solemnly,  “  dat  de  angel  ’as  truly 
come,  somesing  make  dat  child  so  ver’  good.”  » 

“  Lucky,”  said  the  doctor.  “  But  what  I 
want  to  ask  you  is  why  you  were  outside  last 
night  in  the  storm  ?  ” 

His  brows  were  bent  together,  and  he  looked 
both  stern  and  troubled.  Clothilde  gave  a  little 
gasp.  “  In  de  stohm  ?  ”  she  echoed.  “  What 
make  yo’  know  ?  ” 


68 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“Your  hair,”  said  the  doctor,  “and  people. 
I  did  n’t  believe  the  people  till  I  saw  the  hair. 
What  foolery  were  you  up  to,  getting  your 
uncle  into  more  trouble  ?  ” 

Clothilde  did  not  say  anything  for  a  long 
time,  and  her  head  drooped  until  its  wet  tan¬ 
gled  mane  fell  across  her  cheeks.  “  I  was  n’ 
foolin’  no  way,  me,”  she  said,  at  last;  “but 
’ow  did  peopl’  know  ?  ” 

“  Saw  you,”  returned  the  doctor.  “  Philipe 
Gomez  said  he  saw  you  running  along  the 
road  from  the  beach  in  the  gray  light  this 
morning,  and  last  night  his  schooner  anchored 
out  in  the  bay  was  struck  by  lightning,  and 
he  lays  it  to  you.” 

Clothilde  lifted  her  face  with  her  black  eyes 
wide  and  full  of  horror,  but  she  could  not  say 
a  word. 

The  doctor  was  sorry  for  her  and  put  his 
hand  on  her  shoulder.  “You  know  I  don’t 
believe  such  folderol,”  he  said,  “  not  any  more 
than  I  believe  that  your  uncle’s  wheel  lighted 
itself  up  last  night, — that’s  another  thing  Go¬ 
mez  said, — but  I  want  you  to  tell  me  just 
what  possessed  you  to  go  outside  at  all.  I 
never  thought  to  warn  you  not  to  do  a  thing 
like  that  because — why  who  ’d  think  of  a 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS  69 

child’s  going  out  alone  at  night  ?  And  then 
I  supposed  you  had  more  sense.  You  see 
it ’s  this  way,  little  Santa  Claus:  these  people 
here  are  superstitious ;  I  mean  that  they  be¬ 
lieve  in  ghosts  and  hoodoos  and  all  sorts  of 
rubbish,  and  they ’ve  got  it  fast  in  their  heads 
that  your  uncle  and  his  wheel  together  can 
make  any  sort  of  bad  luck  that  they  please, 
and  since  you  ’ve  told  that  you  can  run  the 
wheel  they  think  about  the  same  of  you,  so 
the  minute  you  do  anything  queer  they  ’re  sure 
you  ’re  up  to  mischief.  Did  n’t  you  understand 
all  that  ?  ” 

“  Yas,”  Clothilde  said  slowly,  “  I  knowed  it.” 

“  Then  what  in  creation  took  you  out  in  the 
dark  and  the  rain  ?  ” 

Clothilde  hesitated  again.  It  seemed  as  if 
it  would  do  more  harm  than  good  to  tell  what 
she  had  seen,  but  the  doctor  kept  looking  at 
her  and  she  was  ashamed  not  to  meet  his  eyes. 
“  I  was  skeered  of  de  wheel,”  she  said  in  a 
low,  constrained  voice. 

The  doctor’s  hand  fell  from  her  shoulder 
and  a  muscle  in  his  cheek  jerked  with  vex¬ 
ation.  “  She ’s  just  a  creole  like  the  rest,”  he 
thought.  “  What  skeered  you  ?  ”  he  asked. 

The  tone  hurt  Clothilde.  She  drew  herself 


70 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


up  and  pushed  the  hair  back  over  her  shoul¬ 
ders.  “  I  was  skeered,”  she  said,  “because 
de  w’eel  do  shine  by  itse’f  in  de  night.” 

“Stuff!”  said  the  doctor,  looking  at  her 
sharply. 

“  It  shine  by  itse’f  in  de  night,”  Clothilde 
repeated  with  dogged  firmness.  “  I  know, 
’cause  de  stroke  of  de  t’under  woke  me ;  dere 
was  n’  but  one  an’  I  was  in  my  bed.  De  win’ 
was  blowin’  so  hard  I  got  up  to  see  if  Uncle 
Giacomo  was  all  right,  an’  I  opened  de  door 
softly  not  to  wake  ’im,  an’  dere  was  de  w’eel. 
It  was  shinin’  like  de  white  moon  an’  it  was 
turnin’  by  itse’f,  an’  Uncle  Giacomo — oh,  Uncle 
Giacomo  look  so  strange,  an’  all  I  could  t’ink 
me,  was  ’ow  de  people  said  dat  it  was  of  de 
devil,  an’  I  ran.  I  dropped  out  de  window  an’ 
I  ran  an’  ran  an’  I  did  ’n  know  w’ere  I  went, 
an’  everyt’ing  was  black  ontil  I  came  to  de 
sea.  It  was  shinin’  like  de  w’eel,  an’  den  I  re¬ 
member  w’at  Father  Henri  tell  me  dat  de 
bon  Dieu  gave  de  light  to  de  sea  ’cause  he 
say  dere  mus’  be  light,  an’  I  knowed  it  was 
jus’  de  same  way  wid  de  w’eel.  An’  I’m  goin’ 
to  tell  everybody  dat  it  is  jus’  cause  Uncle 
Giacomo  is  so  good  dat  de  bon  Dieu  lets  ’im 
’ave  de  light  on  his  w’eel  in  de  black  night 
w’en  de  win’  blow  out  de  lamp.” 


THE  FIDDLER’S  LITTLE  ANGELS 


7 1 


The  doctor  breathed  very  softly  to  himself. 
“Well,”  he  said,  “if  there  ’s  bound  to  be  a 
light  on  the  wheel  it ’s  healthier  to  have  the 
bon  Dieu  put  it  there  than  the  devil,  but  it  ’s 
queer  it  never  does  any  of  its  shining  for  me.” 

“  Yo’  ain’t  never  seed  it  w’en  de  win’  blowed 
out  de  lamp,”  Clothilde  answered  stiffly. 

“That  ’s  so,  Santa  Claus,  that’s  so,”  the 
doctor  said,  “  and  I ’m  glad  you ’ve  decided 
it  ’s  the  bon  Dieu;  but  if  you  ever  have  a 
chance  to  ask  Barse  about  it  without  exciting 
him,  just  remember  every  word  he  says  and 
tell  me.  You  ’ll  do  that  much,  won’t  you,  to 
help  me  straighten  this  thing  out  ?  ” 

“  In  co’se  I  will,”  Clothilde  answered,  happy 
to  be  obliging,  “but  dere  is  not’ing  of  crook¬ 
edness  to  make  straight ;  now  I  know  how  de 
w’eel  can  shine  w’en  my  uncle  is  so  good  an’ 
is  de  one  person  in  de  world  w’at  never  scold 
nobody.” 

“  Huh  !  ”  said  the  doctor,  and  went  suddenly 
back  into  the  pottery.  Giacomo  made  a  mo¬ 
tion  for  him  to  be  quiet. 

The  fiddler  had  her  head  in  the  fireplace, 
and  was  peering  up.  “Thank  you,  Santa 
Claus,”  she  called,  “  thank  you  very  much  for 
their  fresh  dresses ;  I  ’ll  be  very  careful  to 
keep  them  clean.”  She  drew  her  head  out  like 


72 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


a  flash,  and  caught  sight  of  the  doctor. 
“  Don’t  step  on  my  little  angels !  ”  she  cried. 
“Don’t  you  see  them?  —  three,  four,  nine  of 
them  right  by  your  feet,  putting  away  my 
flower-pots  ?  ” 

The  doctor  looked  this  way  and  that,  and 
made  a  dive  for  the  outer  door.  “  Between 
crabs  and  angels  and  wheels  that  shine  like 
the  sea!  —  ”  he  muttered.  “Like  the  sea,”  he 
repeated,  pausing.  “  There ’s  an  idea  in  that.” 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 

LOTHILDE’S  heart  ached 
with  the  thought  that  she  and 
the  doctor  had  almost  quar¬ 
relled,  and  that  he  did  not  be¬ 
lieve  what  she  told  him,  and 
she  was  weighted  down  with  the  knowledge 
that  Philipe  Gomez  said  she  had  made  the 
lightning  strike  his  boat.  It  had  never  seemed 
so  awful  to  hear  other  people,  even  Uncle 
Giacomo,  called  “  Hoodoo,”  as  to  have  it 
brought  home  to  herself.  She  felt  too  small 
and  helpless  and  ignorant  to  be  mixed  up  in  * 
that  way  with  things  of  which  the  bon  Dieu 
usually  took  all  the  charge.  Who  was  Clothilde 
Rousselle  from  far  up  Cypress  Creek,  to  be 
taking  the  lightning  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
bon  Dieu  and  sending  it  against  the  schooner 
of  Philipe  Gomez  ?  For  a  moment  she  shiv¬ 
ered  and  buried  her  face  in  her  arms,  while 


73 


74 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


the  sobs  rose  in  her  throat  and  she  wished 
Father  Henri  would  come  down  and  tell  those 
wicked  Potosi  people  that  she  did  not  even 
know  how  the  bon  Dieu  sent  the  lightning 
into  the  sky,  for  when  she  had  asked  Father 
Henri,  he  had  told  her  that  as  long  as  the  bon 
Dieu  sent  it,  it  was  good  to  have  it  there,  and 
that  she  did  not  need  to  know  how  it  came. 
Father  Henri  and  her  mother, — the  very 
names  were  a  great,  quivering  pain,  just  as  they 
had  been  last  night,  and  all  her  thoughts  broke 
into  a  confusion  of  longing  for  her  own,  loving, 
reverent  people,  who  would  never  believe  such 
wicked  things  about  the  bon  Dieu  and  about 
her,  and  who  would  know  it  was  the  truth 
when  she  said  that  the  wheel  shone  in  the 
dark,  because  her  uncle  was  so  good. 

“  Oh,  I  want  to  go  home/’  she  moaned  half 
aloud,  crushing  herself  against  the  wall  to 
ease  the  cruelty  of  homesickness,  “I  —  want 
— -to  go  —  home” 

Just  then  her  uncle  called  her.  She  brushed 
her  hands,  and  then  her  sleeves  across  her 
eyes,  gave  her  dress  a  shake,  and  went  in. 

“  Don’t  you  reckon  it’s  time  the  fiddler  had 
a  dress  on  ?  ”  Giacomo  asked.  He  was  lying 
back  in  bed,  tapping  restlessly  on  his  empty 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


75 


coffee-cup  with  his  spoon.  He  saw  the  marks 
of  sorrow  on  Clothilde’s  face,  and  he  looked 
away,  tapping  a  livelier  measure.  He  needed 
a  little  more  strength  before  he  tried  to  con¬ 
sole  her;  just  now  he  would  only  work  himself 
into  another  passion. 

“Come,  Troululu,”  said  Clothilde. 

The  fiddler  had  a  small  wet  cloth,  and  was 
scrubbing  up  the  soot  that  had  spattered  down 
the  chimney  in  the  night.  “  I  ’m  not  Trou¬ 
lulu,  I  ’m  a  little  angel,”  she  said.  “  Don’t 
trouble  me.” 

“  Come,  little  angel,”  said  Clothilde,  wear¬ 
ily,  “  I  have  a  fresh  dress  for  you.” 

The  fiddler  lifted  an  imaginary  drapery 
from  the  side  of  her  scant  sooty  gown.  “  See 
my  fresh  dress  that  Santa  Claus  gave  me?” 
she  said.  “You  only  have  little  Troululu’s 
dress,  and  Troululu  ’s  gone.  I  saw  her  run¬ 
ning  far  off.” 

“Come,  come,”  said  the  potter,  “that’s  a 
beautiful  way  to  play,  but  when  Clothilde 
says  to  come  and  be  dressed  you  must  go. 
You  can  play  that  Santa  Claus  is  putting  a 
new  fresh  dress  on  you  —  Clothilde  is  your 
Santa  Claus  girl,  you  know.  Go  along.” 

“I  won’t,”  said  the  fiddler,  looking  with 


;6 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


critical  pleasure  at  the  blackness  of  her  rag. 
“  I  ’m  busy.  That  ’s  the  way  little  angels 
talk  ;  they  say,  ‘  I  won’t  —  don’t  trouble  me.’  ” 

“  TroiA ulu  !  ”  Clothilde  gasped.  It  seemed 
too  much  after  the  fiddler’s  morning  had  be¬ 
gun  so  beautifully  that  she  should  fall  into 
what  Giacomo  always  called  “her  queer 
ideas,”  for  when  one  of  them  entered  her  head 
it  always  stayed  a  long  time.  Clothilde  was 
so  tired  that  her  heart  felt  less  pleased  with 
the  fiddler  than  it  had  ever  felt  before.  “Trou- 
lulu,”  she  said  again,  controlling  her  impa¬ 
tience,  “w’at  ’as  gone  wid  all  yo’  goodness?” 

The  fiddler  looked  up  and  around  her  curi¬ 
ously.  “There  it  is,”  she  finally  said,  point¬ 
ing  to  one  of  the  high  shelves.  “  I  saw  it 
crawl  into  that  little  wee,  wee  water  monkey, 
and  it  can’t  get  out.” 

“  Get  down  that  water  monkey,  Clothilde,” 
Giacomo  said  with  decision.  “  The  fiddler 
must  take  her  goodness  out  of  it.  I  ’ll  not 
have  goodness  stored  away  on  a  top  shelf 
when  it ’s  so  mighty  scarce  in  the  world.  Do 
you  understand  that,  Troululu  ?” 

“  I  don’t  hear  you,  papa,”  the  fiddler  said. 
“  I ’m  a  little  angel.” 

Clothilde  climbed  after  the  olla.  With  its 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


77 


small  opening  to  pour  the  water  in,  and  its 
tiny  puncture  for  drinking  the  water  out,  it 
seemed  altogether  reasonable  that  anything 
as  solid  as  goodness  should  find  hard  work  to 
escape  when  once  inside.  A  smile  was  play¬ 
ing  round  the  corners  of  Clothilde’s  mouth  as 
she  picked  her  way  down  from  the  shelf  and 
handed  Troululu  the  queerly  shaped  jar.  It 
was  just  the  right  size  to  keep  a  doll’s  drink¬ 
ing  water  cool  and  refreshing,  and  the  open¬ 
ing  to  drink  from  was  no  bigger  than  the 
point  of  a  pin.  The  fiddler  put  her  eye  to 
the  larger  hole. 

“  My  goodness  is  in  there,”  she  announced. 
“Oh,  you  bad  mechant  goodness,  get  out! 
Get  out !  Get  out !  —  Papa,  it  won’t  come 
out.  See  how  I  shake  the  monkey,  and  it 
won’t  come  out !  I  can’t  be  dressed  while  my 
goodness  won’t  come  out.” 

The  potter’s  black  eyes  kindled  and  he 
draped  his  mustache  behind  his  ears.  It  was 
strange  that  the  very  morning  when  he  was 
planning  to  defy  all  Potosi  for  the  sake  of  the 
fiddler  should  be  the  first  morning  of  her  life 
when  his  hands  would  have  consented  to 
spanking  her.  “That  ’s  about  enough,”  he 
said,  looking  at  her  steadily.  “Wherever 


78 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


your  goodness  is,  let  me  see  it  this  instant  on 
your  face,  and  then  go  to  Clothilde  and  be 
dressed.” 

“  But  it  won’t  come  ow-out,”  the  fiddler 
wailed,  giving  him  sidelong  glances  as  she 
stood  stamping  her  bare  feet  and  shaking  the 
olla  wrathfully  toward  the  floor.  Clothilde 
watched  with  a  catch  in  her  breath,  wonder¬ 
ing  if  after  all  these  weeks  her  uncle  was  going 
to  ask  her  to  bring  the  fiddler  to  him  for  pun¬ 
ishment.  The  fiddler  was  bad,  undoubtedly 
she  was  very  bad ;  but  Clothilde  shrank  from 
the  thought  of  a  spanking  on  top  of  all  their 
other  troubles.  Troululu  swung  the  olla  up 
and  down  and  shook  it  with  all  her  strength. 
Genuine  fury  had  come  into  her  voice,  and  she 
screamed,  “It  s  bad,  bad,  mechant  goodness, 
and  it  wont  come  out !  ”  Suddenly  the  olla  flew 
from  her  hands,  and,  striking  a  hard  earthen 
alligator  that  was  lurking  near  the  wall,  flew 
into  a  thousand  flecks  of  clay. 

“  W’at !  ”  Clothilde  broke  out  in  a  high 
shocked  voice,  “  yo’  call  yo’se’f  a  angel  an' 
yo’  do  dat !  ” 

“I  ’m  not  an  angel,”  said  the  fiddler  tim¬ 
idly,  “I  ’m  just  Troululu.”  There  was  a 
moment  of  absolute  silence  while  she  gazed 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


79 


reproachfully  at  the  fragments  on  the  floor. 
Then  an  enchanting  sweetness  came  into  her 
face.  She  made  one  of  her  swift  darts,  cap¬ 
tured  nothing  but  thin  air,  and  held  it  out 
between  her  thumb  and  finger  like  a  prize. 
“  Here ’s  my  goodness !  See  !  ”  she  cried.  “  I 
found  it !  See  me  put  it  on  my  face  !  And 
the  little  bad  water  monkey  is  all  smashed  so 
my  goodness  can’t  get  in  there  any  more,  and 
you  ’ll  see  it  all  the  days  on  my  face  —  all  the 
weary  days.”  She  went  up  close  to  her 
father.  “What  does  it  mean,  Papa,  ‘weary 
days  ’  ?  and  what  does  it  mean  ‘  weary  nights’  ? 
I  hear  you  say  that  sometimes,  ‘  weary  days 
and  weary  nights.’  Tell  me  what  it  means  ?  ” 

She  was  looking  into  his  face,  her  naughti¬ 
ness,  and  even  her  rapturous  goodness,  all  for¬ 
gotten  in  earnest  questioning.  He  drew  her 
up  beside  him.  “My  baby,  my  baby,”  he, 
said  softly,  as  he  looked  into  her  bright,  wide 
eyes,  “  I  wish  you  would  n’t  ever  know.” 

“Won’t  I  know  when  I  ’m  big?”  the  fid¬ 
dler  persisted.  “That  ’s  what  you  said  be¬ 
fore  you  called  Clothilde.  I  heard  you  say  it, 
Papa:  ‘weary  days  and  weary  nights.’  Do 
you  talk  that  way  ’cause  you  have  a  broken 
leg  ?  ” 


8o 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“Yes,”  Giacomo  answered,  “that’s  about 
the  size  of  it ;  I  reckon  I  talk  that  way  cause 
I ’ve  got  a  broken  leg.” 

“  I  t’ink  dat  Trascan  ’ave  say  it  too,”  said 
Clothilde.  She  was  passing  the  time  while 
she  waited  for  Troululu  by  giving  Trascan  his 
seeds  and  water. 

“  He ’s  not  going  to  say  it  any  more,”  said 
Giacomo.  “  He  ’s  going  to  be  in  luck,  for 
the  doctor  told  me  I  could  make  him  his  new 
leg  to-day.  Poor  old  fellow,  the  angels  of 
Santa  Claus  made  me  forget  about  him,  but 
now,  when  Troululu  has  her  fresh  dress,  I ’m 
going  to  make  him  a  fresh  leg.  Skip  now, 
Troululu,  Trascan  ’s  talking  over  there  to  tell 
you  that  he  is  tired  of  waiting.” 

Clothilde  held  out  her  arms,  the  fiddler 
jumped  into  them  from  the  bed,  and  all  the 
angels  of  Santa  Claus  seemed  to  be  helping, 
—  the  dress  was  on  so  quickly,  the  children’s 
breakfast  made,  and  some  bits  of  wood,  a  pen¬ 
knife,  soft  cords,  and  fine  wires  laid  on  the  pot¬ 
ter’s  little  work-board ;  last  of  all  Clothilde 
brought  Trascan  and  held  him  where  he  could 
look  on.  He  nestled  in  her  hand,  but  his  eyes 
followed  Giacomo  alertly,  as  if  he  knew  what 
the  sharp  little  knife  was  shaping  from  the 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


81 


wood.  Troululu  sat  on  a  pillow  at  her  father’s 
elbow  and  bent  her  head  between  him  and 
the  knife.  Once  in  a  while  she  drew  back 
out  of  the  way  when  he  told  her  he  would  have 
to  make  her  into  a  pint  cup,  but  in  a  moment 
her  head  was  down  again.  Giacomo  realized 
that  she  had  grown  older  in  the  few  weeks  of 
his  sickness,  and  that  the  threat  which  had 
seen  so  much  service  was  outworn. 

“  I  ’ll  have  to  wait  and  do  it  to-night  when 
you  are  asleep,  Troululu,”  he  declared  as  a 
new  resort,  and  the  fiddler  edged  away  several 
inches,  and  though  her  head  kept  leaning  over 
she  drew  it  back  once  or  twice  of  her  own  ac¬ 
cord,  and  the  potter  smiled  as  he  worked  and 
said  to  himself  that  she  was  the  best  child  in 
the  world. 

The  sea  breeze  began  to  stir  through  the 
warm  air  of  the  morning,  the  sunshine  glinted 
in  through  the  fantastic  figures  in  the  pottery 
windows,  and  once  in  a  while  a  cart  rattled 
past  along  the  hard,  white  road.  “There,” 
Giacomo  said,  holding  a  short,  slender  wooden 
peg  up  to  the  light,  and  turning  it  round  and 
round  with  a  severe  eye  for  its  dimensions, 
“  hand  the  old  chap  over  and  let  me  see  if  this 
fits  him.” 


82 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Trascan  cocked  his  black  eyes  in  attention 
while  Giacomo  tenderly  bound,  and  strapped, 
and  fastened  the  fresh  leg  to  what  misfortune 
had  left  him  of  the  old.  Then  he  was  turned 
right  side  up,  and  they  all  laughed  at  the  vis¬ 
ible  start  with  which  he  recognized  the  new 
support  under  him.  It  was  a  little  too  long, 
and  he  hitched  up  one  wing,  and  chirped  cri¬ 
tically  as  he  tried  to  take  a  step.  He  began 
to  peck  at  the  new  leg  and  its  fastenings. 

“  Never  mind,  never  mind,”  said  the  potter. 
“  Just  give  me  time,  old  fellow,  and  my  name ’s 
not  Giacomo  if  I  don’t  make  it  right.”  He 
laid  the  bird  down  again,  and  began  readjust¬ 
ing  the  straps  and  shortening  the  little  peg. 
“  And,  besides,  Trascan,”  he  went  on,  “  I  have 
n’t  told  you  that  when  I  get  it  fitted  I ’m  going 
to  make  toes  for  it.  Of  course,  you  think  a 
new  leg  without  any  toes  is  a  pretty  poor 
present  to  give  a  bird.  There,  is  that  more 
like  ?  ” 

The  tiny  wooden  leg  was  tried,  and  re-fitted, 
and  re-tried  until  it  reached  a  perfection  which 
seemed  satisfactory  to  Trascan,  then  Giacomo 
added  some  wire-claws,  and  Trascan  perked 
his  head  on  one  side,  and  hopped  a  few  steps 
rather  uncertainly  and  stiffly,  but  with  evident 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


83 


pride.  Suddenly  the  full  knowledge  of  his  re¬ 
newal  came  to  him.  He  spread  his  wings 
and  circled  round  and  round  the  room  like  a 
gleam  of  yellow  light,  perching  at  last  on  the 
sill  of  the  open  window  to  sing  out  the  whole 
shrill  rejoicing  of  his  heart.  The  caged  birds 
in  the  yard  were  quick  to  answer  him,  and  the 
fiddler  jumped  up  and  down,  adding  her  sweet, 
piercing  laugh  to  the  carnival  of  life  and  glad¬ 
ness. 

“No  limp  in  his  wings  or  his  voice,”  said 
Giacomo,  leaning  forward  to  watch  the  puls¬ 
ing  of  song  in  his  throat.  “  Put  his  cage  out¬ 
side  with  the  door  open,  Clothilde.  He  ’ll  be 
glad  to  go  in  and  rest  pretty  soon,  but  we  ’ll 
leave  him  his  liberty  while  he  wants  it.  Poor 
old  boy,  I  never  saw  anybody  so  happy  in  my 
life.  No,  no,  Troululu,  don’t  startle  him.” 

The  fiddler  was  stealing  up  toward  the  win¬ 
dow  like  a  kitten.  “  I ’m  not  doing  anything,” 
she  said,  “  I  just  want  to  take  him  in  my  hand 
so  as  to  hear  what  he ’s  saying.” 

“No,  no,  not  now!”  the  potter  cried,  and 
Clothilde  made  a  dash  toward  the  fiddler. 
The  fiddler  escaped  with  a  squeal,  and  Tras- 
can  took  flight  through  the  window  into  the 
radiant  sunshine. 


84 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  Troululu  !  ”  said  the  potter. 

“That  does  n’t  matter,”  the  fiddler  an¬ 
swered  cheerfully  ;  “he  ’s  just  flying  over  the 
fence.  He  ’ll  come  back  pretty  soon  and  say, 
‘  Thank  you,  Papa,  I  like  my  fresh  leg  very 
much  !  ’  ” 

Clothilde  went  outside.  “  ’E  ’as  lighted  in 
de  top  of  a  fig-tree  in  de  empty  yard,”  she 
called  back.  “  Oh,  bud  it  is  strange  de  way 
he  fall  from  de  limb  wid  his  beautiful  leg,  an’ 
den  fly  roun’  an’  roun’  an’  try  again.  Ah,  bud 
’e  has  de  patience,  dat  Trascan,  an’,  yas,  he 
’as  already  improve  ver’  much,  he  balance 
more  true.  Bud  I  t’ink,  me,  it  is  ingratitude 
to  balance  in  some  odder  yard.  Shall  I  climb 
de  fence  an’  skeer  ’im  back  ?  ” 

“No,  no,  leave  him  be,”  said  Giacomo, 
“  he  ’ll  come  all  right.  He  was  frightened  at 
Troululu  for  a  minute,  but  he  knows  who  his 
friends  are.  Let  him  have  his  fill  of  freedom 
for  this  day.” 

“  I  should  t’ink  ’e  would  remember  him  ’boud 
dat  cat,”  said  Clothilde.  “  Dat  is  de  yard  of 
de  cat.” 

“  Better  keep  watch  through  the  fence, 
then,”  said  Giacomo,  “  and  if  the  cat  comes  in 
sight  you  can  climb  over  and  drive  Trascan 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


85 


home.  He  ’ll  come  of  his  own  accord  soon, 
depend  on  him.” 

The  children  kept  faithful  watch,  their  round 
eyes  first  at  one  and  then  at  another  of  the 
long,  glimmering  cracks  between  the  palings  ; 
but  the  cat  did  not  come,  and  Trascan  con¬ 
tinued  to  experiment  with  his  little  wire  toes 
on  the  twigs  of  the  alien  fig-trees,  and  though 
he  sang  cheerfully,  and  made  great  progress 
in  balancing,  he  showed  no  thought  of  coming 
home.  Perhaps  he  had  noticed  just  how  few 
ripe  figs  were  left  on  the  trees  in  the  potters 
yard  since  Clothilde  came.  Trascan  was  a 
wise  bird,  and  very  fond  of  figs  himself.  When¬ 
ever  he  was  firmly  balanced  he  encouraged 
himself  by  pecking  one. 

The  doctor  stopped  in  on  his  way  home 
from  his  morning  round  of  visits  and  found 
the  house  and  the  potter  as  still  as  he  could  » 
wish.  “This  is  sense,  Barse,”  he  said,  “this 
is  sense.”  There  was  scarcely  a  thing  that 
needed  to  be  done,  and  he  marched  nervously 
about  the  room,  taking  down  one  piece  of  pot¬ 
tery  and  then  another,  as  he  always  did  when 
the  baby  was  not  in  the  way.  “  Queer  place 
you  have  here,  Barse,”  he  said,  once  in  a 

while,  “  queer  place.”  By-and-by  he  took  a 

6* 


86 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


strong  crock  and  climbed  on  it  to  reach  an  upper 
shelf  where  there  was  a  pottery  basket,  made 
like  a  coiling  snake.  While  he  was  peering 
about  among  some  dusty  pots  back  of  the 
basket,  he  spoke  again  in  a  matter-of-fact  way 
to  the  potter.  “  I  heard  something  that  inter¬ 
ested  me  about  your  wheel,”  he  said.  “Two 
or  three  people  tell  me  they  Ve  seen  it  shine 
in  the  dark.  It  set  me  to  wondering  if  you 
rubbed  phosphorus  on  it.” 

“No/  said  Giacomo,  simply;  “I  painted  it 
with  luminous  paint.” 

“  Luminous  paint  ?  ”  cried  the  doctor,  turn¬ 
ing  square  round  and  almost  falling  from  the 
crock  before  he  could  step  from  it.  “  What ’s 
luminous  paint  ?  ” 

“You  make  it  by  heating  powdered  oyster 
shells  and  sulphur  together  in  something  air¬ 
tight,”  Giacomo  answered,  looking  pleased. 
“  They  combine  into  a  stuff  that  has  the 
trick  of  shining  in  the  dark,  after  the  sun  has 
shone  on  it,  and  you  mix  that  stuff  with  var¬ 
nish,  and  you  have  luminous  paint.  I  hap¬ 
pened  to  get  hold  of  a  paper  one  time  that  told 
about  its  being  made  and  used  on  match-boxes, 
so  that  when  you  went  into  a  room  at  night 
you  ’d  see  the  match-box  first  thing,  and  the 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


87 


paper  thought  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  use 
on  danger  buoys  at  sea,  and  it  popped  into 
my  head  at  once  that  it  would  be  a  great 
scheme  to  have  some  on  the  wheel.  You  see 
I  Ve  always  had  a  hankering  to  use  every  sort 
of  paint  I  ever  heard  of,  and  about  that  time  I 
was  spending  hour  after  hour  at  night,  running 
my  wheel  and  singing  to  the  fiddler,  —  seemed 
as  if  there  never  was  such  a  child  not  to  sleep, 
after  her  mother  died.  She  would  have  the 
lamp  lighted,  and  the  brightness  kept  her 
awake,  and  I  thought  the  soft  glow  they  said 
this  paint  gave  out  would  be  just  the  thing  to 
quiet  her,  and  so  it  was.  Having  my  furnace 
for  the  pottery,  it  was  n’t  much  trouble  to 
make  it,  either,  and  when  it  gets  smeared  with 
the  clay  I  put  on  a  fresh  coat.  I  suppose  you  Ve 
never  seen  it  shining,  because  since  I  Ve  been 
sick  I  Ve  always  kept  a  lamp  at  night.” 

The  doctor  was  standing  by  the  wheel,  and 
looking  from  it  to  Giacomo,  and  back  again, 
as  if  he  had  never  seen  either  of  them  before. 
“  What  ?  ”  he  exclaimed,  “you  did  a  thing  like 
that  and  did  n’t  tell  anybody  ?  ” 

A  flush  came  over  the  potter’s  face,  and  he 
gave  a  little  laugh.  “To  tell  the  truth,”  he 
said,  “  I  was  n’t  so  used  to  having  folks  down 


88 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


on  me  as  I  am  now,  and  I ’d  been  hacked  so 
much  for  the  way  I  painted  the  pottery  and 
the  handcart,  and  a  lot  of  other  things,  that  I 
said  nothing  about  this.  I  knew  they ’d  make 
a  lot  of  crazy  jokes  and  fasten  some  sort  of 
a  nickname  on  me  that  I  would  n’t  want  the 
fiddler  to  hear  when  she  grew  up,  and  so  I 
kept  this  to  myself.  It  did  n’t  show  queer  by 
daylight,  and  there  was  no  one  but  the  fiddler 
and  me  to  see  it  at  night.  They  called  me 
‘  Rainbow  Barse’  when  I  painted  the  house.  I 
reckon  they ’d  have  called  me  ‘  Moony,’  if  they 
had  seen  the  wheel.” 

The  doctor  looked  at  him  half  laughing, 
half  pitying.  Giacomo  met  the  look  steadily, 
and  his  eyes  began  to  question  the  doctor’s. 

“Oh,  you  ’ve  been  a  precious  fool,”  the 
doctor  said.  “You  did  n’t  want  to  be  called 
names,  did  you?  And  what  sort  of  a  name 
do  you  suppose  they  ’re  calling  you  now  for 
the  fiddler  to  grow  up  and  hear?  And  the 
worst  of  it  is  that  you  can  begin  now  and  go 
on  until  doomsday  telling  these  people  that 
you  ’ve  painted  your  wheel  with  ‘  luminous 
paint,’  and  they  ’ll  go  on  believing  that  your 
paint  and  your  wheel  and  you  are  all  ‘  of  the 
devil.’  You  have  been  a  precious  fool.” 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


89 


Giacomo  leaned  back  against  his  pillow. 
He  was  very  white  and  he  said  nothing  for  a 
long  time. 

“  Well  ?  ”  the  doctor  challenged  him. 

“They  think  I ’m  a  hoodoo, ”  Giacomo  said, 
between  his  flattened  lips.  “  That  ’s  what 
they  ’ve  been  telling  Clothilde,  is  it  ?  ” 

“Yes,  that ’s  what  they  Ve  told  her,”  the 
doctor  said,  “  and  they  ’re  beginning  to  think 
she  ’s  one,  too.  But  she ’s  got  something 
better  than  they  have  now.  She  saw  your 
wheel  last  night,  and  at  first  it  scared  her,  and 
then  she  made  up  her  plucky  little  mind  that 
the  bon  Dieu  put  the  light  there  because  you 
are  so  good.” 

The  potter  smiled  faintly.  “  I  wish  you ’d 
call  her  in  here,”  he  said. 

“  She  ’ll  not  believe  in  your  precious  paint, 
any  more  than  the  rest  of  them  will,”  the  doc¬ 
tor  said  as  he  went  to  the  door.  He  was  feel¬ 
ing  more  exasperated  than  relieved  by  the 
potter’s  simple  explanation  of  a  mystery  which 
he  had  hoped  to  hear  denied.  If  the  wheel 
really  shone,  then  Barse  could  never  make  a 
soul  believe  that  the  paint  did  it  unless  he  had 
first  done  something  uncanny  to  the  paint. 
The  doctor  shut  the  door  behind  him  with  a 


9o 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


swing.  The  fiddler  was  all  alone  in  the  yard, 
peering  through  the  palings.  “What?”  he 
cried,  hurrying  out. 

A  flash  of  sunlit  wings  met  him,  and  Tras- 
can  settled  by  the  open  cage.  Clothilde’s 
head  came  out  through  the  branches  of  a  fig- 
tree  in  the  empty  yard  just  as  the  doctor 
reached  the  fence. 

“  Duck  back  under  the  leaves,”  he  whis¬ 
pered  sharply.  “There  ’s  a  cart  passing  in 
the  road,  and  they  ’ll  see  you  !  Are  you  crazy, 
climbing  in  other  people’s  trees  ?  ” 

The  black  head  disappeared.  “  W’at  way 
did  Trascan  fly?”  a  soft  voice  questioned  out 
of  ambush. 

“  Home,”  said  the  doctor,  “  and  you  follow 
him.  The  cart ’s  gone  by.” 

After  a  moment  Clothilde  tumbled  lightly 
over  the  high  fence  and  came  down  on  her 
feet  just  at  the  doctor’s  side.  “  I  did  n’  go  faw 
no  foolin’,  mo’  dan  befo’,”  she  said.  “Uncle 
Giacomo  he  build  Trascan  a  new  leg  dis 
mawnin’  an’  Trascan  ’ad  de  queer  idea  to  fly 
into  de  trees  in  de  yard  of  de  cat,  an’  Uncle 
Giacomo  tole  me  to  put  myself  into  the  trees 
an’  drive  ’im  back  if  de  cat  made  herse’f  in 
sight.” 


THE  REBUILDING  OF  TRASCAN 


9i 


“  Did  he  tell  you  to  make  yourself  in  sight, 
too  ?  ”  the  doctor  asked. 

“  Naw,”  Clothilde  answered.  She  felt  that 
the  doctor  was  not  as  seriously  cross  as  he  had 
been  earlier  in  the  morning,  and  a  spark  of 
mischief  came  into  her  eyes.  “  Do  yo’  reckon/’ 
she  asked,  “  dat  people  would  care  ver’  much 
if  I  hoodooed  dat  ole  cat  ?  She ’s  all  dat  owns 
de  empty  place.” 

“  There  ’s  no  telling  what  people  will  care 
about  when  it  comes  to  hoodoos,”  the  doctor 
answered  gravely.  “  Come  in.  Your  uncle 
wants  to  tell  you  what  puts  the  light  on  the 
wheel.  I  decided  to  ask  him  about  it  myself, 
and  there ’s  nothing  queer  about  it  at  all.” 

“  In  co’se  dere  is  n’,”  said  Clothilde, 
stanchly,  “  w’en  my  uncle  is  so  good.” 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  FLOWER- POTS  TAKE  PART 


HE  potter  leaned  from  a  crutch 
and  shaped  a  chubby  red- clay 
pitcher  on  his  wheel,  while  Clo- 
thilde  trod  the  pedal,  content¬ 
edly  humming,  “  Tournez  en¬ 
core,  tournez  toujour s .”  Whatever  the  rest 
of  Potosi  might  be  saying  and  thinking,  the 
weeks  had  slipped  uneventfully  out  of  sight  at 
the  pottery,  and  Giacomo  was  getting  well. 
The  doctor  had  not  been  in  for  several  days, 
and  Giacomo  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  felt 
lonesome,  though  he  did  not  need  the  doctor. 
Almost  the  only  thing  that  he  could  not  do  now 
for  himself  was  to  turn  the  wheel  when  he 
stood  beside  it.  Clothilde  knew  that  as  soon 
as  he  began  to  do  this  she  would  not  be  nec¬ 
essary  any  longer,  and  her  heart  was  such  a 
blending  of  eagerness  and  regret  that  she 
could  not  tell  whether  she  wanted  to  go  back 


92 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


93 


to  Cypress  Creek  or  not.  She  was  wondering 
about  it  as  she  turned  the  wheel,  and  she  was 
questioning,  too,  why  her  uncle  asked  her  to 
turn  it  at  all.  The  little  song  died  away  in  a 
slow  breath. 

“  Uncle  Giacomo,”  she  said,  “  yo  tell  me  it 
is  jus’  de  paint  dat  make  de  w’eel  shine  in  de 
night,  but  yo’  never  say  w’at  make  it  turn  itse’f 
dat  night  I  saw  it.  I  reckon,  me,  dat  de  bon 
Dieu  could  make  it  turn  itse’f  better  dan  de 
paint.” 

The  potter’s  face  wrinkled  under  the  eyes 
into  a  smile.  “  I  reckon  you  ’re  right,  Clo- 
thilde,”  he  answered.  “  The  bon  Dieu  could 
make  it  turn  better  than  anything  else  could 
if  that  was  his  way,  but  according  to  what 
1  ’ve  seen,  it ’s  his  plan  to  give  somebody  the 
idea  of  doing  what  he  wants  for  himself.  Now 
just  look  here.” 

The  wheel  was  still  standing  by  the  bed. 
Giving  his  crutch  to  Clothilde,  Giacomo  sat 
down  on  the  edge  of  the  mattress  and  stretched 
his  injured  leg  out  straight  along  it.  With 
the  foot  of  his  sound  leg  he  managed  to  reach 
the  pedal  and  to  tread  it.  He  looked  across 
at  Clothilde.  “I’m  pretty  near  as  bad  as  the 
fiddler,”  he  said;  “but  when  I  ’m  nervous 


94 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


nothing  puts  me  to  sleep  like  running  the 
wheel ;  and  that  night  when  the  storm  came 
up  and  I  saw  that  it  was  n’t  waking  you,  I 
knew  the  sound  of  the  wheel  would  n’t  wake 
you  either,  and  when  I  found  I  could  make  it 
go,  and  kind  of  play  I  was  well  and  at  work,  I 
was  as  happy  as  a  youngster.  One  of  the 
shutters  blew  open  and  my  lamp  went  out, 
and  it  was  just  like  old  times  with  the  wheel 
whirling  in  the  dark,  and  no  light  but  its  own. 
I  did  n’t  hear  you  come  to  the  door ;  and  the 
next  day  when  the  doctor  brought  you  in,  and 
I  told  you  about  the  paint,  I  supposed  you ’d 
seen  my  well  leg  down  there  treading  the  pedal, 
so  I  did  n’t  say  anything  about  that.  Now  are 
you  satisfied  that  it ’s  all  me, —  and  paint  ?  ” 
Clothilde  nodded  her  puzzled  head.  “  De 
bon  Dieu  ’e  make  yo’  t'ink  it  is  all  yo’,  any- 
’ow,”  she  said,  “  bud  I  t’ink  me  dat  he  he’p 
yo’  a  heap,  else  w’y  by  daylight  are  yo’  always 
wantin’  me  to  do  de  treadin’  faw  yo’  ?  ” 

Giacomo  got  to  his  crutch  again.  “  You  ’re 
mighty  hard  to  corner,  Clothilde,”  he  said, 
laughing ;  “  but  if  you  notice  you  ’ll  see  that 
I  work  to  better  advantage  by  standing  than 
by  trying  to  lie  down  and  to  sit  up  and  to 
stand  all  at  the  same  time.  That  ’s  what  you 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


95 


might  call  working  three  ways  for  Sunday, — 
don’t  you  think  so,  Troululu  ?  ” 

The  fiddler  did  not  notice.  She  was  sitting 
very  quiet,  grinding  the  empty  coffee-mill, 
and  singing  “  Tournez  toujours  while  she 
thought  out  some  problems  of  her  own.  Gia¬ 
como’s  glance  lingered  on  the  little  face  that 
was  so  vitally  keen,  and  on  the  intelligence  of 
the  big  intense  eyes,  and  he  told  himself  that 
he  must  find  some  new  plan  and  place  for  liv¬ 
ing  before  she  was  old  enough  to  understand 
what  people  believed  of  him  here.  Clothilde’s 
stubborn  faith  that  the  bon  Dieti  had  been  of 
direct  help  about  the  wheel  showed  only  too 
plainly  how  other  folks  would  cling  to  their 
ideas.  Potosi  people  had  disliked  him  in  the 
first  place  because  he  had  been  so  unsociable, 
and  now  that  they  thought  him  possessed  of 
evil  magic,  he  might  just  as  well  give  up  and 
go  away.  He  wondered  if  in  some  new  place 
he  could  train  himself  to  be  enough  like  every 
one  else  to  make  friends  for  the  fiddler.  His 
good  little  wife  would  have  made  them,—  it 
was  in  that  way  that  he  and  Troululu  would 
always  miss  her  most  of  all.  The  fiddler 
broke  through  his  thoughts  with  a  question 
which  startled  him,  it  came  so  fitly. 


96 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“Papa,”  she  said,  “what  does  it  mean,  'oo- 
dooed ?  Clothilde  said  that;  she  said,  ‘Would 
peopl’  care  ver’  much  if  I  ’oodooed  dat  ole 
cat  ?  ’  ” 

The  fiddler  s  mimicry  was  unconscious  but 
perfect.  Clothilde  turned  a  deep  crimson. 
“  I  did  n’  know  Troululu  ’ear  dat,”  she  said. 
“  I  say  dat  to  de  doctor  cause  ’e  scold  me  faw 
goin’  into  de  empty  yard  to  drive  Trascan 
’ome.  Bud  she  ’ear  everything,  an’  it  look  like 
she  goin’  to  remember  her  of  everyt’ing  clear 
till  she  die.  It  was  two  t’ree  weeks  back  I 
say  it.” 

“  It  ’s  a  word  we  ’ll  not  speak  here,”  the 
potter  said.  “  I ’ve  used  it  too,  but  I  reckon  if 
we  drop  it  altogether  she  ’ll  forget,  if  we  don’t 
keep  her  in  mind  by  forbidding  her  when  she 
says  it.  I  don’t  want  her  to  know  that  word.” 

“  What  does  it  mean,  papa  ?  ”  the  fiddler  de¬ 
manded,  leaving  her  coffee-mill  to  come  closer. 
“  Don’t  talk  to  Clothilde,  talk  to  me.” 

“The  best  I  can  tell  you  is  scared ,”  said 
Giacomo.  “  Clothilde  wanted  to  know  if  peo¬ 
ple  would  mind  if  she  scared  the  cat, —  was  n’t 
that  it,  Clothilde  ?  ” 

“  Yas,”  began  Clothilde;  then  she  stopped 
treading  the  wheel  and  lifted  her  hand.  “  W’at 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


97 


is  dat  ?  ”  she  asked.  She  was  always  the  first 
to  notice  any  sound  outside. 

The  potter  bent  his  head  and  listened.  They 
could  hear  the  distant  rush  of  many  feet,  that 
grew  louder  and  nearer  and  mingled  itself 
with  shouts  and  cries. 

“  What  can  have  happened  ?  ”  the  potter 
asked. 

Something  crashed  against  the  window  and 
fell  inside.  It  was  a  brick,  and  it  answered 
him.  Another  followed  it,  and  another  and 
mother.  Giacomo  swept  the  baby  up  under 
his  arm  and  ran  with  her  to  the  room  that  was 
stacked  full  of  pots.  “  Stay  there  or  they  ’ll 
kill  you,”  he  told  her  as  he  thrust  her  behind 
the  door.  “Now  help  me  get  the  wheel  in 
there,  it ’s  what  they  ’re  after,”  he  said,  leap¬ 
ing  back  to  Clothilde,  “and  you’ll  stay  with 
them  while  I  stand  outside  the  door.”  They 
ran  across  the  room  with  the  wheel  between 
them  and  shoved  it  in  among  the  pots. 

“  Don’  shut  the  door,”  cried  Clothilde,  “stan’ 
wid  it  open  an’  we  ’ll  chunk  dem  wid  de  pots. 
See,  I  ’ll  take  de  baby  far  back  in  one  corner 
w’ere  we  ’ave  make  a  little  place  faw  play,  far 
back.”  She  crawled  off  with  the  fiddler, 
grinding  over  and  between  the  pots. 


98 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Giacomo  hurled  a  pot  at  a  man  who  was 
aiming  a  brick  at  him  from  the  outer  door, 
and  the  man  jumped  back.  There  was  a  great 
shout  of  “  Hoodoo  !  Hoodoo  !  Hoodoo  !  ”  The 
wind  sometimes  shrieked  like  that  around  the 
pottery,  but  this  was  deeper  and  more  fierce. 
There  were  angry  men  outside,  men  who 
were  ready  to  strike  down  the  potter  if  he 
stood  between  them  and  his  wheel,  yet  their 
fear  of  the  wheel  and  all  that  came  from  it 
rose  through  their  anger.  Clothilde  crawled 
back  to  her  uncle’s  elbow  and  would  not  be 
sent  away.  Their  thin  pale  faces  were  clear 
and  firm  as  white  stone  against  the  shadowy 
background  of  the  ranks  of  pots.  The  bricks 
kept  flying  through  the  windows  and  the  door, 
shattering  queer  grinning  idols  and  homely 
baking-dishes  and  the  slender  terra-cotta  vases 
whose  lines  had  haunted  Giacomo  until  he 
worked  them  out  in  clay  ;  but  whenever  a  man 
came  near  to  door  or  window,  and  a  pot  went 
whizzing  out  at  him,  the  man  dodged  aside 
and  then  ran  away  from  it  as  if  he  were 
running  from  a  ghost. 

“  That ’s  the  advantage  of  being  a  hoodoo,” 
Giacomo  said  between  his  teeth.  “  A-ah  !  ” 
A  brick  fell  just  short  of  him  and  crushed  a 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


99 


pot  which  had  rolled  to  his  feet.  “  Stand  well 
behind  me,  Clothilde,”  he  said,  “  or  crawl  back 
and  keep  that  child  from  screaming/’ 

He  glanced  down  at  her  an  instant,  and 
while  his  eyes  were  turned  a  man  bent  into 
the  doorway  ready  to  throw.  Clothilde  saw 
him  and  sprang  a  step  forward,  flinging  a  pot. 
“  I  don’  stan’  bellin’  nobody  till  deir  bricks  is 
gone,”  she  cried.  “Yo’  Philipe  Gomez,  yo’ 
dare  to  say  I  make  de  lightnin’  strike  yo’  boat ! 
Yo’  t’ink  de  bon  Dieu  let  a  little  girl  fire  de 
lightnin’  w’en  she  don’  even  know  ’ow  it  get 
in  de  sky  ?  ” 

The  man  stood  quite  still,  merely  dodging 
the  pot.  H  is  hands  were  empty,  but  he  clenched 
one  of  them  and  shook  it  at  Clothilde.  “  Yo’ 
did  turn  de  lightnin’  ag’in’  my  schooner,”  he 
cried ;  “  I  saw  yo’  cornin’  back  from  de  sho’. 
An’  what  faw  did  yo’  learn  to  run  dat  w’eel 
but  to  do  harm,  an’  w’at  faw  did  yo’  go  into  de 
empty  yard  dere  but  to  put  a  hoodoo  on  de 
place,  so  dat  w’en  a  man  sleeps  dere  overnight 
he  dies?  Yo’  t’ink  we  don’  know  w’at  go  on, 
but  we  know ;  we  know  w’en  de  doctor  who 
is  yo’  frien’  take  de  man  out  an’  bury  ’im  in  de 
night  w’en  ’e  t’ink  nobody  see.  Yo’  was  a 
harmless  littl’  girl  w’en  I  brought  yo’  down 


IOO 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


from  Cypress  Creek,  an’  w’en  I  see  yo’  in  de 
store  an’  on  de  street  I  say,  ‘  Pore  littl’  t’ing, 
she  goin’  to  ’ave  bad  luck,’  an’  I  never  t’ought 
dat  yo’  would  learn  de  knowledge  of  de  w’eel 
an’  spread  de  bad  luck  worse  dan  ever  he  dared 
spread  it.”  He  took  a  step  toward  them,  mak¬ 
ing  the  sign  of  the  cross.  “  Come  on  !  Come 
on !  Come  on !  ”  he  shouted  to  the  men  out¬ 
side.  “  Are  yo’  skeered  of  de  w’eel  w’en  yo’ 
can  cross  yo’se’ves?  Yo’  got  to  he’p  me 
now  to  break  de  w’eel  or  dey  ’ll  put  de  hoo¬ 
doo  onto  everyt’ing !  ” 

Clothilde  rushed  out  from  under  Giacomo’s 
arm,  her  eyes  flaming,  a  pot  in  either  hand. 
“  Yo’  dare  to  call  dem  strong  men  ag’in’  my 
uncle  wid  his  leg  not  yet  cure’ !  ”  she  cried  out. 
“  Yo’  dare  to  try  to  break  his  w’eel  w’en  de  bon 
Dieu  put  de  light  on  it  because  my  uncle  is 
so  good !  Dat  is  wa’t  for  de  w’eel  shine  like 
dat :  it  shine  because  my  uncle  sing  to  ’is  baby 
an’  hurt  nobody  an’  never  scold.  It  is  de  bon 
Dieu  dat  has  de  light  an’  de  lightnin’,  an’  ’e 
put  dem  w’ere  ’e  please  ;  an’  if  ’e  put  de  light¬ 
nin’  on  yo’  boat  an’  de  still  white  light  on  de 
w’eel,  it  is  because  ’e  know  de  bad  an’  de 
good — ”  She  stopped  a  moment,  for  her  words 
stumbled  on  one  another  as  they  crowded 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


IOI 


through  her  lips,  and  her  breath  was  troubled. 
“An’  de  bon  Dieu  don’  want  no  girls  like 
me  to  he’p  ’im  wid  de  lightning’’  she  repeated, 
“  an’  I  don’  know  w’at  lies  yo’  tell  ’boud  a  dead 
man,  cause  dere  ain’t  not’ing  in  de  empty  place 
but  a  cat,  an’  de  bon  Dieu  put  de  light  on 
my  uncle’s  w’eel  because  my  uncle  is  so  good.” 

“Come  back  here,  Clothilde,”  the  potter 
called.  He  could  not  leave  the  wheel  and  the 
baby,  but  the  red  spots  which  had  not  risen 
before  burned  in  his  cheeks.  “  Come  back 
here,  and  don’t  move  from  behind  me,  and  I  ’ll 
break  the  head  of  the  man  that  comes  a  step 
nearer,  and  they  all  know  it.  Don’t  waste 
any  words  on  them.  We  have  pots  here,  and 
they  ’re  better  than  words.  The  wheel  made 
’em,  and  they  ’ll  take  care  of  the  wheel.  Ah,” 
he  cried  to  Philipe  Gomez,  “you  think  my 
wheel  belongs  to  the  devil,  and  yet  you  try  to 
fight  it  when  this  room  is  full  of  the  pots  it 
has  made.  Come  back  here,  Clothilde,  and 
you,  Philipe  Gomez,  get  outside  my  door.” 

Clothilde  moved  from  between  them,  but 
she  did  not  go  back.  Gomez  stood  at  bay, 
courage  and  anger  wrestling  with  the  super¬ 
stition  that  pulled  back  on  him  and  made  his 
legs  shake  with  fear.  All  the  shouting  had 


102 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


died  away  outside.  The  men  dared  not  follow 
Gomez  into  the  house  ;  their  bricks  were  gone, 
and  they  stood  huddled  by  the  windows  lis¬ 
tening,  and  the  only  sound  that  came  to  them 
while  Giacomo  waited  for  Gomez  to  move  or 
to  speak  was  the  wild  screaming  of  the  fiddler 
from  back  among  the  pots. 

“What?” 

Every  man  of  them  turned  with  a  start. 
They  had  not  seen  the  doctor  coming  down 
the  road,  but  he  had  seen  their  faces,  and  he 
hurried  in  among  them  with  a  grim-looking 
smile.  “  So  you  Ve  come,”  he  said.  “Thought 
it  was  time  to  see  if  Barse  had  got  well  of  his 
hurt,  did  you  ?  Very  neighborly  you  Ve  been 
— what  put  you  in  mind  of  this  little  surprise 
party  ?  ” 

The  men  glowered  back  at  him.  There 
were  narrow-browed  Creoles  and  lazy  blue¬ 
eyed  poor  whites  of  English  blood,  and  rough- 
featured  foreign  sailors  who  had  run  aground 
in  this  tiny  quiet  harbor;  but  all  their  faces 
had  the  same  marks  of  passion  half  controlled 
or  paralyzed  by  fear  of  the  potters  gift  of 
harm. 

“  You-all  need  n’t  start  out  to  twit  us,  Doc,” 
one  of  the  poor  whites  answered  sullenly ;  “  it 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


103 


won’t  be  healthy  for  you.  You  ’re  a  little  too 
took  up  with  these-hyar  hoodoos.  You-all 
did  n’t  know  you  was  seed  when  you  stole  out 
by  night  an’  buried  the  man  that  was  hoo¬ 
dooed  to  death  over  yonder.”  He  jerked  his 
thumb  toward  the  empty  house  which  was 
hidden  by  the  pottery.  “You  did  n’t  know 
that  me  an’  Jim  Tardy  seed  you  when  you 
first  went  into  the  house.  We  was  restin’  an’ 
smokin’  our  pipes  on  yon  side  the  empty  yard, 
an’  we  heard  the  groanin’  an’  slipped  into  the 
bushes  to  listen,  ’cause  we  reckoned  there  was 
something  wrong,  an’  we  seed  you-all  come 
out  this  door,  an’  come  by,  an’  stop  an’  listen, 
an’  walk  in  like  you  owned  the  whole  ground 
an’  war  n’t  afeard.  An’  then  we  saw  you  come 
a-slyin’  out  as  white  as  a  rag,  an’  we  waited 
till  you  come  a-sneakin’  back  with  a  lot  o’ 
things,  an’  there  ain’t  one  of  us  but  thinks  you 
made  a  good  fight  to  save  the  pore  creetur, 
an’  you  need  n’t  be  skeered  for  yoreself — ” 

“  Stop  !  ”  the  doctor  said,  in  a  loud,  slow 
voice.  The  taunting  look  had  gone  from  his 
face,  and  it  was  full  of  wrath.  “  Do  you  know 
what  you  ’ve  brought  on  yourselves  ?  ”  he 
asked.  “  Do  you  know  what  was  the  matter 
with  the  man  I  found  in  the  house  ?  ” 


104 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  Hoodooed,”  several  voices  muttered. 

“  Hoodooed  !  ”  the  doctor  echoed,  and  his 
tone  had  a  touch  of  pity ;  “  yes,  hoodooed,  if 
you  like  the  word.  The  big  black  hoodoo 
did  it.  It  comes  sometimes  in  this  country  to 
clear  the  world  of  such  poor  fools  as  you — 
only,  God  help  us,  it  don’t  stop  with  the  fools. 
Do  you  know  why  I  stayed  with  that  man  all 
day  and  told  nobody,  and  buried  him  alone  at 
night?  He  had  run  away  from  a  ship  in 
quarantine  at  the  islands, —  he  had  just  enough 
strength  to  tell  me, —  and  he  rowed  here  with 
the  sickness  coming  on  him,  and  crawled 
ashore  and  found  that  empty  house  to  die  in. 
I  took  care  of  him,  and  buried  him,  and  puri¬ 
fied  the  house  and  myself,  and  told  only  those 
who  had  to  know  and  could  be  trusted.  They 
thought  as  I  did,  that  the  danger  would  die 
with  him,  and  there  would  be  no  panic  and  no 
fear.  Much  good  it  does  to  try  to  keep  the 
like  of  you  out  of  danger.  You’ve  followed 
and  spied  and  watched  a  yellow-fever  case. 
You  don’t  like  the  sound  of  it,  do  you  ?  It ’s 
a  little  worse,  I  reckon,  than  you  think  Barse 
can  do  with  his  wheel.  You  were  too  full  of 
your  hoodoo  business  to  be  thinking  of  fever, 
but  now  you  ’ll  think  of  it  —  ”  He  paused. 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


105 


The  crowd  had  scattered  like  leaves  before  a 
storm.  The  scream  of  “  Fever  !  ”  came  back 
to  him  from  men  rushing  along  the  street  and 
swaying  from  side  to  side  as  if  in  a  frenzy  of 
pain. 

“  Stop  !  ”  the  doctor  shouted ;  “  you  Ve  got 
to  hear  me  !  Stop,  all  of  you  !  Stop  !  Stop  !” 

Only  cries  and  curses  answered  him  as  the 
panic  swept  on,  gathering  new  voices  as  blinds 
were  thrown  open,  and  people  came  running 
out  of  their  sleepy,  shadowy  houses  into  the 
glare  of  sunlight.  Only  one  man  out  of  the 
mob  had  stayed.  Philipe  Gomez  was  stand¬ 
ing  with  Giacomo  and  Clothilde  at  the  pottery 
door. 

“  If  you  ’re  keeping  your  head,”  the  doctor 
said  to  him,  excitedly,  “  there  ’ll  be  work  for 
you  to-day.  We ’ve  got  to  keep  these  people 
from  refugeeing  into  the  country  and  spread¬ 
ing  the  fever  broadcast.  Can  you  make  them 
understand  that  the  infection  is  already  in 
them,  if  it ’s  going  to  be,  and  they  can’t  get 
away  from  it  ?  ” 

“I  can  try,”  said  Gomez,  “but  de  terror  is 
on  dem.”  He  swept  his  arms  toward  the  empty 
street.  They  all  looked  at  one  another,  under 
the  great  dread  that  threatened  them.  After 


io6 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


a  moment,  Gomez  gave  himself  a  sharp,  de¬ 
spairing  fling  and  ran  down  the  road. 

“  You  ’ll  go  back  to  Cypress  Creek  to-day, 
my  little  nurse,”  Giacomo  said  to  Clothilde. 
He  had  been  silent  since  the  doctor  had  spoken 
to  the  men ;  but  thoughts  were  flashing  as 
swift  and  clear  as  messages  through  his  mind. 
“  After  all  she ’s  done  for  me,  to  have  anything 
happen  to  her,”  kept  singing  itself  behind  all 
the  other  thoughts.  He  was  not  troubled  for 
the  fiddler.  She  was  a  part  of  himself,  and 
they  would  stay  where  they  were,  and  live  or 
die  as  it  happened,  and  show  that  they  had  no 
fear.  But  something  crossed  his  eyes  and 
clouded  them  with  softness  as  he  thought  of 
Clothilde  and  her  trustful  little  mother,  who 
had  sent  her  to  him  into  all  the  hardship  of 
unfriendliness  and  suspicion  and  attack,  and 
now,  perhaps,  of  death.  The  doctor  could  say 
what  he  would  about  spreading  the  fever,  but 
Clothilde  should  go  back  to  Cypress  Creek. 
“  For,  if  I  were  her  mother,”  Giacomo  thought, 
“  I ’d  rather  have  her  back  with  me  and  take 
care  of  her,  and  run  the  risk  of  all  dying  to¬ 
gether  than  to  feel  that  I  ’d  sent  her  away 
among  as  good  as  strangers,  and  she ’d  died 
there.  Yes,”  he  said  aloud,  “you’ll  see  your 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


107 


little  mother  to-night,  and  I  reckon  you  11  be 
pretty  glad.” 

“  She  11  be  mighty  glad  to  see  yo’  an’  de 
baby,”  Clothilde  answered,  her  face  lighting  up. 

The  potter  set  his  lips.  “  We  ’re  not  going,” 
he  said.  “  There  will  be  plenty  of  people  yet 
to  think  I  had  a  hand  in  this,  and  I  can’t  ref¬ 
ugee  from  it.  I  Ve  got  to  face  whatever 
comes.” 

“  Folderol !  ”  said  the  doctor.  “  But  you 
must  refugee  up  in  the  woods,  where  you  11 
be  near  to  nobody.  You  don’t  want  to  go  to 
Cypress  Creek.  Hard  to  say  it,  and  I  don’t 
want  to  scare  you,  little  Santa  Claus ;  but 
there ’s  a  chance  for  you  to  have  the  fever  from 
being  next  door  to  that  man,  and  you  ’re  not 
the  one  to  want  to  take  it  home.  I  don’t  think 
you  11  have  it,  for  the  wind  was  the  other  way, 
and  I  did  everything  I  could ;  but  it ’s  not  a 
risk  to  play  with.” 

“But  she  must  n’t  be  sick  away  from  her 
mother,”  Giacomo  put  in  hoarsely. 

Both  men  looked  at  Clothilde,  and  she  stood 
between  them  with  her  head  downcast  and 
her  cheeks  fading.  Cypress  Creek  with  its 
quiet  and  its  love  seemed  crying  out  for  her. 
She  could  see  her  mother  hurrying  from  the 


io8 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


low  doorway  of  home  with  hands  outstretched 
and  shining  eyes,  and  she  could  feel  herself 
caught  into  the  swift,  long,  warm  embrace 
that  mothers  give  to  children  coming  home. 
Even  death  would  be  so  easy  if  her  mother 
held  her  fast  and  Father  Henri  pointed  a 
bright  way  for  her  through  all  the  darkness. 
Uncle  Giacomo  was  very  good  and  very  dear, 
but  he  did  not  know  all  that  Father  Henri 
did.  She  clenched  her  brown  hands  at  her 
sides,  and  her  tears  brimmed  over,  but  still 
she  did  not  raise  her  head.  The  doctor 
reached  out  and  touched  her  tenderly.  In 
the  silence  they  could  hear  the  fiddler  scream¬ 
ing  in  untiring  rage. 

“Ah,”  Giacomo  broke  out,  “she  has  to  go. 
I  can’t  have  anything  happen  to  her  after  all 
she ’s  done  for  me ;  and  she  has  been  more 
patient  than  I  have  with  the  fiddler.” 

With  a  little  heartbroken  cry  Clothilde 
threw  her  arms  about  his  neck.  “I  won’t  leave 
de  fiddler,”  she  sobbed,  “w’en  maybe  she  ’ll 
be  sick  too,  an’  I  won’t  take  de  fever  to  my 
mama.  I  —  I  —  ”  She  drew  herself  away 
from  him  and  dashed  the  tears  out  of  her  eyes. 
“I  —  I  ’ll  jus’  go  an’  get  ’er  out  of  de  hole  I 
drop  ’er  in  to  keep  ’er  safe.” 


THE  FLOWER-POTS  TAKE  PART 


109 


The  doctor  bent  and  brushed  the  dust  of 
broken  pots  from  his  shoe.  “  I  thought  I 
knew  her,”  he  muttered.  Giacomo  said  no¬ 
thing;  there  was  too  much  sorrow  in  his 
thoughts. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR 

HE  fiddler  had  been  wildly 
anxious  to  leave  the  security 
of  the  pots,  but  she  was  far 
too  angry  to  walk,  so  she  came 
back  kicking  and  screaming  in 
Clothilde’s  arms.  When  they  reached  Gia¬ 
como,  Clothilde  swung  her  to  and  fro  beside 
him,  trying  to  put  her  upon  her  feet,  but  the 
small  legs  were  possessed  by  stubborn  limp¬ 
ness,  and  all  that  Clothilde  could  do  was  to 
let  her  sink  gradually  into  a  formless  bundle 
of  indignation  upon  the  floor.  Giacomo 
reached  down  to  pet  the  little  bundle  with  its 
gasping  breath  and  tear-stained  face. 

The  doctor  looked  on  with  unusual  sympa¬ 
thy.  “  Got  enough  temper  for  a  town,”  he 
said;  “but  it  was  pretty  good  of  her  to  stay 
where  you  put  her.  Where  was  she  ?  ” 

“But,”  exclaimed  Clothilde,  “she  had  to 


no 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR 


hi 


stay !  She  was  back  in  de  pots.  I  ’ad  make 
a  littl’  hole  dere,  me,  deep  like  a  well,  faw 
play.  I  put  ’er  into  it,  so,”  — she  reached 
down  her  arms, — “  and  she  is  not  yet  enough 
tall  to  come  out  by  ’erself.  Dat  keep  ’er  safe.” 

“You  —  bad  —  mechante  —  Clothilde,” 

* 

sobbed  the  fiddler,  whose  heart  had  melted  to 
a  fresh  gush  of  weeping  under  Giacomo’s  ca¬ 
resses ;  “you — did  n’t  —  come  in  too —  like 
—  always.  I  did  n’t  told  you  you  could  go 
away, —  I  was  —  afraid.”  She  wiped  her  eyes 
on  her  worn  old  dress,  leaving  red  dust-tracks 
across  her  face,  and  sobbed  a  little  longer 
tremulously  but  without  tears.  Then  she 
lifted  her  head  and  looked  about  her,  making 
wide  eyes  of  reproof  at  all  the  broken  things 
which  strewed  the  floor.  “  Who  did  it,  papa?” 
she  asked. 

“Just  some  men,”  her  father  answered. 
“  They  played  a  very  rough  play  here,  worse 
than  you  and  Clothilde,  when  you  build  a 
tower  too  high,  out  of  pots.” 

“  What  for  did  they  talk  so  loud  ?  ”  the  fid¬ 
dler  asked,  looking  straight  into  his  eyes.  “  I 
heard  them  talk  too  loud,  papa,  and  Clothilde 
talked  too  loud,  and  you  talked  too  loud,  papa, 
and  I  was  afraid.  What  for  was  I  afraid  ?  ” 


1 1 2 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Giacomo  did  not  answer.  He  was  bending 
above  her,  stroking  her  hair,  and  wondering 
what  to  say,  when  she  noticed  his  crutch  rising 
beside  her.  Some  dimples  danced  into  her 
face,  under  the  red  dust.  She  made  a  sudden 
spring  and  caught  the  two  sides  of  the  crutch 
and  climbed  into  the  foothold  that  was  made 
where  they  joined.  Giacomo  nearly  lost  his 
balance,  for  she  had  taken  him  unawares. 
Clothilde  jumped  to  steady  him,  and  the  doc¬ 
tor  picked  Troululu  off  the  crutch. 

“  You  little  crab !  ”  he  cried,  holding  her  over 
his  head,  “  you  Ye  out  of  mischief  now,  for  a 
little  while,  I  reckon.”  He  kept  her  aloft  in 
punishment  while  he  turned  to  the  potter.  “  If 
it ’s  decided  that  all  of  you  stay  on  here,  I 
must  get  along;  I  Ve  got  to  see  how  many 
sane  men  there  are  left  in  town,  and  what  can 
be  done.” 

“  I  wish  I  could  help,”  Giacomo  said. 

“  You  may  before  we  Ye  through,”  answered 
the  doctor.  He  looked  at  Troululu,  who  was 
staring  down  at  him. 

“  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ?  ”  she 
asked. 

He  lowered  her  and  gathered  her  suddenly 
into  his  arms ;  but  when  he  had  kissed  each 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR  113 

dimple  free  of  the  red  dust,  he  dropped  her 
like  a  shot,  turned,  and  went  striding  off  along 
the  white  shell  road  that  echoed  to  his  steps. 

The  fiddler  was  a  little  statue  of  wonder. 
“  The  doctor  kissed  me,”  she  said  to  Giacomo. 
“  What  for  ?  ”  She  had  no  memory  of  ever 
being  kissed,  except  by  her  father  and  Clo- 
thilde.  Giacomo  only  stooped  and  kissed  her 
again,  but  she  paid  no  attention.  “  What  for 
did  he  kiss  me?”  she  repeated.  “Does  he 
love  me  ?  ” 

“Yes,”  her  father  said,  “I  reckon  he  loves 
you,  little  fiddler.” 

The  fiddler  ran  rapturously  across  to  Clo- 
thilde.  “  Did  you  see  the  doctor  kiss  me  ?  ” 
she  cried.  “  He  kissed  me  so,  and  so,” — she 
patted  the  war-paint  on  her  cheeks, —  “just 
the  way  my  little  angels  kiss  me.  Papa  kisses 
me,  and  you  kiss  me,  and  the  doctor  kisses 
me,  and  three,  four,  nine  little  angels  kiss  me, 
because  I  am  so  good.  Papa,  why  don’t  every¬ 
body  kiss  me  when  they  see  me  on  the  street, 
and  what  makes  the  children  run  away  ?  ” 

“  Dey  shall  not  run  away  no  mo’,”  Clothilde 
declared.  “  I  will  tell  dem,  me,  jus’  de  way  I 
tole  Philipe  Gomez  — ” 

“  Hush,”  said  the  potter ;  “  I  ’m  going  to 
8 


A 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


1 14 

make  the  two  of  you  a  set  of  real  dishes  for 
play,  if  you  clear  all  the  bricks  and  broken  stuff 
out  of  this  place  and  put  it  in  order  again.” 

He  walked  slowly  across  to  his  bed,  and  when 
Clothilde  had  straightened  it  for  him,  he  lay 
down,  looking  spent  with  fatigue.  “  Little 
nurse,”  he  said  to  her,  “  I ’d  give  all  I  ever  hope 
to  have,  if  you  were  out  of  this  and  safe  with 
your  mother, —  remember  that  of  your  hoodoo 
uncle,  won’t  you,  whatever  happens  ?  But 
seeing  you  ’re  here” — he  touched  her  dress 
lightly  with  his  hand — “  seeing  you  ’re  here,  I 
wish  you ’d  just  tell  your  bon  Dieu  that  I  thank 
him  for  sending  me  such  a  comfort, —  and,  lit¬ 
tle  Clothilde,  keep  my  fiddler  happy.” 

Clothilde  felt  a  choking  in  her  throat.  “Uncle 
Giacomo,  yo’  ain’t  sick,  are  yo’  ?  ”  she  asked. 

“No,  dear,”  the  potter  answered,  “I ’m  not 
sick,  thank  God;  only  tired.”  He  drew  her 
down  to  him  and  kissed  her.  Then  he  turned 
and  closed  his  eyes. 

Clothilde  stole  away  and  began  groping 
about  the  floor  for  the  wreckage  of  things 
which  had  been  friends  to  her  since  she  came 
to  the  pottery.  The  many-colored  bits  of 
earthenware  swam  before  her  eyes  and  some¬ 
times  seemed  to  be  rising  out  of  reach.  She 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR  115 

kept  pausing  in  anger  at  herself.  Up  at 
Cypress  Creek,  it  was  her  mama’s  boast  that 
Clothilde  never  cried,  and  now  she  seemed  to 
have  tears  in  her  eyes  all  of  the  time.  Trou- 
lulu,  not  finding  her  good  company,  soon  stole 
away  to  the  yard,  and  there,  in  the  sunshine 
and  the  stillness,  her  baby  voice  took  up  the 
words  which  she  had  heard  outside,  when  she 
was  screaming  in  the  well  of  pots.  It  seemed 
to  Clothilde  that  for  hours  and  hours  the  child 
kept  singing,  “  Hoodoo  !  hoodoo  !  hoodoo  ! 
hoodoo  !  ”  At  last  Giacomo  put  his  hand  to  his 
ears.  Clothilde  started  to  call  her,  but  Giacomo 
murmured,  “Leave  her  alone;  she  is  happy.” 

The  doctor  looked  in  again  that  evening  to 
tell  them  how  the  day  had  passed.  He  was 
disgusted  and  disheartened,  for  the  fear  of 
fever  still  kept  people  beyond  all  reason.  The 
village  authorities  had  little  power  and  less 
purpose,  and  refugees  had  been  streaming 
out  of  town  by  every  road.  Those  who  did 
not  go  were  not  staying  from  courage,  but 
from  the  worst  fear  of  all,  a  vacillating  fear 
that  had  not  even  the  strength  for  escape. 

“I ’m  surprised  at  Gomez,  though,”  the  doc¬ 
tor  said;  “he ’s  been  as  cool  as — Clothilde, 
and  I  reckon,  from  a  word  he  d"  A  ped,  that 


n6  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

she  had  something  to  do  with  it.  He  talked 
to  those  folks  like  a  preacher;  did  a  lot  more 
good  than  I  could,  though  it  was  little  enough.” 

Clothilde  was  keeping  the  fiddler  out  of 
mischief  by  making  shadow  pictures  on  the 
wall,  and  for  a  little  while  the  two  men  watched 
.  the  pictures  affectionately. 

“You  see,”  said  Giacomo,  “she  gave  him 
her  ideas  about  the  wheel.  I  could  tell  it  was 
striking  pretty  deep  from  the  queer  look  of 
his  face  as  he  stood  there,  wanting  to  go  ahead 
but  not  daring  to  for  fear  he  was  making  a 
mistake  about  who  owned  the  light.  Queer 
how  the  hoodoo  notion  makes  a  fool  of  a  man. 
Gomez  is  naturally  mighty  pious  and  mighty 
brave,  and  my  name ’s  not  Giacomo  any  more 
if  he  don’t  begin  to  show  it  now  there ’s  real 
danger  on  hand.” 

“Well,”  said  the  doctor,  “if  he ’s  lost  the 
hoodoo  notion  it ’s  not  because  I ’ve  told  him 
that  you  painted  your  wheel  with  /ominous 
paint  ” —  he  always  drawled  the  word  “  lumi¬ 
nous  ”  contemptuously.  “  I  ’ve  made  that  lit¬ 
tle  statement  to  all  the  people  in  town,  and 
their  minds  have  shed  it  just  the  way  a  duck 
sheds  water;  but  if  little  Santa  Claus  gets  to 
talking  to  them,  maybe  —  ”  He  jumped  from 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR  117 

the  edge  of  the  bed  where  he  had  been  sitting. 
“Well,  well,  there  are  plenty  of  people  beside 
you  to  be  thinking  of  now,  but  we  ’ll  see.” 

“Yes,”  said  Giacomo,  “we ’ll  see.”  They 
shook  hands  gravely,  and  the  doctor  patted 
Clothilde  on  the  shoulder  and  kissed  the  fid¬ 
dler.  All  of  them  except  the  fiddler  knew 
that  without  a  word  they  had  promised  one 
another  the  best  strength  and  endurance  that 
was  in  them  if  the  great  dread  came  true. 

The  fiddler  threw  herself  across  her  father’s 
knees  and  hugged  them.  “  He  kissed  me 
again,  the  doctor  did,”  she  exulted.  “Two 
times  to-day  he  kissed  me !  Where  did  he 
find  so  many  kisses  for  me,  and  what  made 
him  have  his  goodness  on  his  face?  ” 

“  Because  you  ’re  the  best  of  all  the  babies, 
Troululu,”  the  potter  answered,  as  he  had 
answered  many  other  questions  many  times 
before. 

The  next  morning  quarantine  had  been  de¬ 
clared  against  Potosi  in  answer  to  messages 
which  the  doctor  had  sent  out.  The  few  slow 
trains  which  crept  along  the  coast-line  in  those  - 
days  passed  without  stopping,  and  the  trad¬ 
ing-schooners  swung  idly  at  anchor  in  the 

blue,  breeze-kissed  channel,  or  nosed  against 

8* 


1 1 8  THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 

the  straggling  piers  that  fringed  the  beach. 
Out  of  the  hot,  dusty  September  sky  a  black¬ 
ness  settled  over  the  little  town.  People 
scarcely  ventured  into  the  streets,  and  every 
one  knew  that  in  the  night  a  woman  had 
knocked  frantically  at  the  doctor’s  door,  and 
that  he  had  gone  with  her  and  had  not  come 
away.  He  left  a  word  at  the  pottery  as  he 
went.  Clothilde  found  it  and  it  read,  “Jim 
Tardy  down  with  the  fever.  Started  to  run 
away  this  afternoon,  but  came  back  sick  to¬ 
night.  You’ll  not  see  me  again  unless  you 
get  it  yourselves.” 

After  that  morning  the  days  followed  one 
another  silently  at  the  pottery.  Even  Trou- 
lulu’s  ceaseless  chatter  sounded  small  and 
pitiful,  and  did  not  seem  to  break  through  the 
hush  which  pressed  in  upon  them  from  out¬ 
side.  The  leaves  of  the  China  trees  kept 
fluttering  from  the  branches  and  drifting 
hither  and  yonder  in  ragged,  capricious  flocks, 
like  children,  but  nothing  else  was  astir  in 
the  empty  streets.  The  way  to  the  grave¬ 
yard  was  not  near  to  the  pottery,  or  they 
would  have  seen  more  passers,  for  Clothilde 
heard  of  death  after  death  as  she  went  on  her 
errands  in  the  village.  The  grocer  was  most 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR  119 

given  to  talking  to  her,  but  she  noticed  that 
after  the  first  he  told  the  deaths  listlessly,  as 
if  they  had  grown  commonplace,  and  he  was 
no  longer  full  of  questions  about  her  uncle  and 
herself  and  the  pottery.  It  was  as  if  nothing 
mattered  to  him  any  more ;  and  one  day  when 
the  store  was  shut,  and  Clothilde  knocked 
without  rousing  any  one,  the  first  thought  that 
crossed  her  mind  was  that  he  had  finally  lost 
interest  even  in  selling  his  goods ;  but  the 
next  moment  she  heard  a  voice  moaning  in¬ 
side  the  door.  She  stood  quite  silent,  think¬ 
ing  what  she  ought  to  do,  for  she  had  already 
tried  the  latch,  and  it  was  locked.  Then  the 
rhythm  of  swift  walking  came  along  the  street, 
and,  looking  up,  she  saw  the  doctor  hurrying 
toward  her,  and  waving  her  from  him  with 
his  hands.  “  Not  yet,  not  yet,  little  Santa 
Claus,”  he  called;  “we  don’t  need  you  yet.” 
His  voice  had  all  of  its  strong  emphatic  com¬ 
fort,  but  his  face  was  drawn  with  deep  lines 
of  care.  Clothilde  moved  away  reluctantly. 
In  the  instant  she  had  stood  there  a  vision 
had  come  to  her  of  making  an  entrance  to  the 
fever-stricken  man,  and  saving  his  life.  She 
did  not  feel  in  the  least  afraid,  only  pitiful  for 
the  moaning,  and  almost  exultant  in  her  op- 


120 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


portunity.  It  was  a  wild,  childish  dream,  yet 
she  knew  that  if  she  could  do  something  like 
that  people  would  not  think  she  was  a  hoodoo 
any  more.  She  walked  slowly,  looking  back 
over  her  shoulder,  and  she  saw  the  doctor  set 
himself  against  the  door  and  force  it  from  its 
weak  hinges.  Some  one  must  have  taken 
him  word  that  there  was  a  sick  man  inside, 
for  he  had  not  paused  an  instant,  but  just  be¬ 
fore  he  went  inside  he  called  to  Clothilde 
again. 

“  How ’s  your  uncle?  ”  he  asked. 

“  Well  !  ”  Clothilde  answered.  “  He  don’ 
use  ’is  crutch  no  mo\” 

“Good,”  said  the  doctor,  and  hurried  into 
the  house. 

That  night  an  oyster-shell  struck  the  pot¬ 
tery  door  sharply.  Giacomo  opened  it  and 
peered  against  the  dark. 

“  Can  you  leave  your  fiddler  with  Clothilde 
and  come  and  nurse  Philipe  Gomez  ?  ”  asked 
the  doctor’s  voice.  “  He  ’s  been  working 
night  and  day,  and  now  he  ’s  down  himself. 
He  says  he ’s  willing  to  have  you  come,  and 
there ’s  no  one  else.” 

“All  right,”  said  Giacomo. 

“  Quick  !  ”  called  the  doctor.  “  No  time  to 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR 


1 2 1 


waste,  and  I  must  tell  you  what  to  do  as  we 

go.” 

“All  right,”  Giacomo  said  again,  but  he 
stood  quite  still,  and  put  his  hand  up  to  his 
head.  “  Clothilde,”  he  said. 

“  It  is  not  right !  ”  Clothilde  cried  vehe¬ 
mently;  “dey  ’ave  done  not’ing  faw  yo\” 

“No,  papa,  it  ’s  not  right”  the  fiddler 
echoed.  The  sound  of  the  shell  had  wakened 
her,  and  she  was  sitting  up  straight  and  fierce 
in  her  bed,  although  she  did  not  know  what 
was  going  on. 

Giacomo  snatched  her  up  and  kissed  her 
with  a  passion  of  tenderness.  “  It ’s  for  you, 
for  you,  for  you,”  he  whispered,  carrying  her 
to  Clothilde.  “  It  ’s  for  her,  Clothilde,”  he 
said  aloud ;  “  and  you  ’ll  keep  her  here,  and 
not  try  to  see  or  hear  from  me  unless  she  is 
sick  or  you  are  sick.”  He  stopped  a  moment, 
with  his  clear  deep  eyes  searching  Clothilde’s 
steady  face.  “  Little  Clothilde,”  he  went  on, 
“  I  think  the  good  God  will  take  care  of  you— 
but  listen.  Every  day  that  you  ’re  both  well, 
hang  Trascan’s  red  cage  in  the  window  of 
your  room,  and  every  night  put  a  lamp  there. 
I  ’ll  come  in  sight,  and  then  I  ’ll  know.” 

“  Quick  !  ”  the  doctor  called. 


122 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


Giacomo  kissed  Clothilde  on  the  forehead, 
and  bent  down  toward  the  fiddler.  She  threw 
herself  round  his  neck,  and  clung  to  him  so 
that  it  took  his  strength  to  unclasp  her  arms. 
As  he  hurried  out  and  along  the  road  with  the 
doctor  he  could  hear  her  screaming  for  him  to 
come  back. 

“  Little  Santa  Claus  ’ll  soon  pacify  her,”  the 
doctor  said. 

“  Of  course,”  Giacomo  answered  in  a  short 
voice.  He  could  scarcely  speak  when  the 
fiddler  was  begging  him  to  come  and  he  was 
going  away  from  her.  He  looked  back  once. 
Light  streamed  through  the  pottery  windows 
between  the  weird  black  figures  he  had  shaped, 
and  Clothilde’s  silhouette  still  guarded  the 
doorway  with  the  fiddler  huddled  against  her 
heart.  The  potter  turned  towards  the  dark¬ 
ness  again,  swallowing  hard,  but  thanking 
God  for  Clothilde.  With  her  to  care  for  his 
fiddler  he  could  go  out  and  help  these  people 
who  had  hated  him,  and  if  he  lived  they  would 
be  his  friends  and  the  fiddler’s  friends  forever, 
and  if  he  died  Clothilde  would  take  the  fiddler 
home  to  Cypress  Creek  and  there  would  be 
children  to  play  with  her  and  women  to  care 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  BLACK  FEAR 


123 


for  her,  better  than  he,  perhaps,  in  spite  of  all 
he  liked  to  say  against  them;  and  there  would 
be  so  much  love  all  about  her  that  she  would 
never  miss  his  love  nor  know  that  it  had  been 
the  greatest  love  of  all.  His  little  fiddler, 
who  had  never  been  an  hour  away  from  him, 
would  slowly  forget  the  pottery  and  the  long 
nights  when  the  wheel  had  glowed  and  he  had 
sung  to  her.  She  would  forget  to  call  his 
name  when  she  was  frightened,  or  when  she 
was  happy  —  quickly,  very  quickly,  she  would 
even  forget  his  face. 

“Doctor,”  he  asked  huskily,  “are  most  of 
them  dying  with  the  fever  ?  ” 

“Not  a  very  large  per  cent.,”  the  doctor 
answered.  “All  the  hot  wet  weather  has  made 
the  place  ripe  for  it,  but  it ’s  not  a  very  virulent 
type.  The  trouble  is,  these  people  do  so 
many  imprudent  things,  and  they  keep  one 
another  excited  and  frightened.  You  must  in¬ 
sist  on  absolute  quiet  for  Gomez ;  don’t  let 
him  lift  a  hand.” 

Giacomo  straightened  himself  in  the  dark 
and  smiled  at  his  own  borrowing  of  sorrow. 
He  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  neither 
die  nor  be  sick,  and  a  sudden  buoyancy  went 


124 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


through  him  as  he  realized  that  he  was  walk¬ 
ing  off  through  the  night  in  comradeship  with 
a  man  who  trusted  him. 

“  Doctor,”  he  said,  “  my  head  has  been  back 
with  those  children,  so  far,  but  now  I ’m  ready 
to  take  exact  orders.  I  ’ve  never  nursed  yel¬ 
low  fever,  and  I  want  to  know  all  that ’s  to  be 
expected  and  all  that  ’s  to  be  done. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


ONG  after  darkness  had  closed 
behind  the  potter,  Clothilde 
stood  in  the  doorway  hugging 
the  fiddler  close  and  closer  in 
her  arms.  The  empty  silence 
of  the  room  seemed  harder  to  face  than  the 
great  breathing  loneliness  of  the  star-dusk  in 
which  the  fiddler’s  piercing  “  Pa-pa  !  Pa-pa  !  ” 
echoed  faintly  from  the  distance  and  was  gone. 
At  last  the  fiddler  fell  into  wordless  sobbing 
and  Clothilde  went  inside  with  her  and  closed 
the  door. 

It  seemed  as  if  they  could  never  go  to  sleep. 
Troululu  lay  with  her  great  eyes  full  of  mys¬ 
tery  staring  at  the  little  lamp  up  on  the  shelf, 
or  roaming  along  the  walls.  She  had  met 
the  first  defeat  of  her  life  and  she  was  ponder¬ 
ing  it,  so  that  her  longing  for  Giacomo  was 
not  as  great  at  first  as  her  wonder  that  he 


125 


126 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


could  have  gone  when  she  was  crying  for 
him.  Clothilde  lay  down  beside  her  and  reached 
a  protecting  arm  over  the  little  figure  that  was 
so  absolutely  stirless  that  again  and  again  she 
lifted  her  head  to  see  if  sleep  had  not  touched 
the  solemn  eyes.  But  the  gaze  she  intercepted 
held  no  token  of  wavering,  and  it  made  the 
loneliness  seem  more  lonely,  for  it  awed  Clo¬ 
thilde,  and  she  did  not  dare  to  gather  the  fiddler 
up  close  to  her  again  and  kiss  and  comfort 
her  as  she  would  have  comforted  one  of  her 
own  little  sisters.  If  the  fiddler  had  kept  on 
crying  it  would  have  seemed  more  human  and 
less  sad. 

The  fiddler  sighed  at  last,  a  long,  weary 
sigh.  Clothilde  bent  hoveringly  over  her, 
whispering,  “  My  po’  cherie 

“  Is  Papa  coming  pretty  soon  ?  ”  the  fiddler 
asked. 

“No,  he  can’d  come,”  Clothilde  answered, 
“  not  ver’  soon.  He  has  gone  to  take  care  of 
a  man  dat  is  sick,  an’  ’e  can’d  come  back.” 

“What  made  him  go  away  and  not  come 
when  I  called  ?  ” 

“He  had  to  go,  po’  littT  cherie ,  de  po’  man 
was  so  sick,”  Clothilde  murmured,  passing  an 
arm  under  the  baby’s  shoulders  and  looking 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


127 


down  at  her  with  tender  eyes.  “  He  had  to 
go,  po’  cherie ,”  she  repeated  softly,  “but  Clo- 
thilde  don’  ’ave  to  go,  an’  Clothilde  will  take 
good  care  of  yo’  till  ’e  come  ’ome.” 

The  fiddler  drew  herself  away  and  sat  up 
to  listen,  for  some  night  sound  had  caught  her 
ear.  “  Papa !  ”  she  called  in  sweet  bird-notes ; 
“  Papa !  ” 

“  He  can’d  ’ear  yo’,  cherie ,”  Clothilde  said. 

“  Papa  !  ”  the  fiddler  called  again,  “  Papa  ! 
Papa ! ” 

Clothilde  could  not  endure  the  child’s  plead¬ 
ing  face  and  voice.  “  Don’  call  ’im,”  she 
begged;  “he  is  so  far,  far  off  wid  de  po’  sick 
man.  He  has  gone  w’ere  ’e  cannot  come.” 

The  fiddler  looked  up  at  her  with  a  child’s 
strange  calm.  “Is  my  papa  dead?”  she 
asked. 

The  older  child  shivered  back  from  her. 
“  Yo’  saw  ’im  walk  right  oud  de  house  yo’se’f, 
Troululu,”  she  cried.  “Yo’  know  ver’  well 

1 

he  is  not  dead.  W’y,  my  po’  petite ,  w’at  faw 
yo’  ask  if  ’e  is  dead  ?  ” 

“My  mama  is  dead,”  Troululu  answered, 
“’cause  papa  said  so.  Papa  said  I  had  a 
mama  up  in  the  blue,  blue  sky,  and  then  I 
called,  ‘  Mama !  mama !  mama !  ’  and  she 


128 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


did  n’t  come,  and  papa  said  she  could  n’t  come 
’cause  she  was  dead ;  and  whenever  I  called 
her  he  let  me  play  horse  with  his  mustaches 
’cause  she  could  n’t  come.  And  now  my  papa 
won’t  come.  Is  he  going  to  climb  and  climb 
and  climb  up  through  the  dark,  and  be  with 
my  mama  when  the  sky  gets  blue  ?  ” 

Clothilde  caught  up  the  words  and  held 
them  in  her  memory.  If  anything  should 
happen  to  Giacomo  they  would  be  good  to 
use  again ;  but  the  thought  of  how  soon  she 
might  have  to  use  them  was  more  than  she 
could  bear.  “  Oh,  Troululu,  yo’  papa  ain’ 
dead,”  she  sobbed;  “po’  littl’  Troululu,  ’e  ain’ 
dead  at  all.” 

The  fiddler’s  wide  eyes  slowly  brimmed  with 
tears.  “  He  —  would  n’t  —  come,”  she  said. 

“  ’E  will  come,  po’  littl’  cherie ,”  Clothilde 
sobbed  again,  “’e  will  come.” 

“  But  I  called  him,”  the  fiddler  repeated,  as 
if  that  settled  everything;  “I  called  him  — 
and  he —  did  rit  corned 

“’E  will  come,”  Clothilde  answered;  and 
softly,  over  and  over  again,  she  said  it,  until 
she  saw  the  kind  dark  shadows  of  sleep  flut¬ 
tering  across  the  fiddler’s  eyes ;  and  more  and 
more  softly  she  kept  on  saying  it,  until  it  grew 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


129 


into  one  of  their  ceaseless  songs  to  the  wheel, 
and  her  own  black  lashes  drooped  against  her 
cheeks.  The  flame  of  the  little  lamp  burned 
low,  and  all  the  things  upon  the  shelves 
seemed  shrinking  out  of  sight.  The  wick 
glowed  for  a  while  and  then  sparkled  out, 
leaving  nothing  in  the  pottery  but  peaceful 
breathing  and  sleep,  and  the  pale  light  of  the 
wheel,  which  stood  like  a  tireless  watcher  by 
the  bed. 

When  the  morning  sunshine  came  into  the 
room  it  found  the  children  still  asleep.  Clo- 
thilde’s  hand  was  resting  on  the  wheel,  for  she 
had  wakened  once  and  reached  out  to  it,  feel¬ 
ing  that  the  bonDieu^N^s  very  good  to  her  since 
he  had  not  taken  away  its  light.  A  beam  of 
the  sunshine  crept  across  the  floor  and  touched 
her  face.  She  opened  her  eyes  with  a  star¬ 
tled  remembrance  that  she  and  the  fiddler 
were  alone. 

“  Has  my  papa  come  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler, 
opening  her  eyes  too,  as  if  something  had 
told  her  that  Clothilde  was  awake. 

“Naw,  ’e  ’as  n’t  come,  not  yet,”  Clothilde 
answered,  “an’  we  mus’  hurry  an’  dress  an’ 
get  our  breakfas’,  an’  den,  do  yo’  know  w’at 
we  goin’  to  do  ?  ” 


130 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  Go  and  find  him?  ”  asked  Troululu. 

“  Dat  would  n’  be  no  fun,”  said  Clothilde, 
“  cause  he  would  jus’  say  to  us,  ‘  Go  back  an’ 
take  care  of  de  ’ouse  like  I  tole  yo’,  w’ile  I  take 
care  of  de  sick  man.’  Naw,  we  goin’  to  make 
all  sort  of  littl’  pots  on  de  w’eel,  an’  yo  ’ll  play 
yo’  are  de  papa  an’  I ’m  de  Troululu,  an’  yo’ 
say,  ‘  Fiddler,  if  yo’  ain’  good  I  put  yo’  on  de 
w’eel  an’  make  yo’  into  a  pint  cup  !  ” 

“  A-a-ah,  I  won’t  play  that,”  the  fiddler  cried; 
“  that ’s  just  a  mean,  little  hoodoo  play, — that ’s 
what  it  is,  it ’s  a  hoodoo  play  ;  you  ’re  too  big 
to  be  a  little  Troululu,  and  I  want  you  to  take 
me  to  my  papa.” 

“  An’  I  will  make  a  littl’  new  dish  on  de 
w’eel,”  Clothilde  went  on,  “an’  put  it  dere  by 
de  chimney,  an  call  all  de  littl’  angels  to  come 
an’  eat  breakfas’  wid  us  — ” 

“No,”  interrupted  the  fiddler,  beginningto 
sob,  “they  ’re  too  mechants ,  the  little  angels; 
I  don’t  like  them  any  more,  not  any  more  at  all. 
They  live  up  in  the  blue,  blue  sky  with  my 
mama,  and  they  don’t  bring  my  mama  here  to 
see  me  down  the  chimney.  I  like  my  papa 
the  best.  I  want  you  to  take  me  to  my  papa.” 

“An’  de  littl’  angels  will  say,  “Who  make 
such  a  good  coffee  ?  ”  Clothilde  persisted  hope- 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU  13 1 

fully,  “  an’  I  will  tell  dem,  me,  ‘  Littl  ’  Troululu 
always  get  up  an’  he’p  me  make  de  coffee,  dat 
make  it  so  delicieux ,  an’  dey  will  say, — ” 

“  I  won’t  drink  coffee  with  those  bad,  littl’ 
angels,”  the  fiddler  screamed,  dropping  out 
of  bed  and  making  for  the  outer  door,  “  I ’m 
going  to  my  papa.” 

“  But  yo’  can’d  go,  littl’  fiddler,”  Clothilde 
said,  running  after  her  and  pulling  her  away 
from  the  lock,  “  yo’  can’d  go,  de  man  is  too 
sick,  an’  yo’  papa  don’  want  yo’  to  come,  an’  he 
is  too  far,  yo’  papa  is  too  far,  faw  yo’  to  go  to  ’im’. 

“  My  papa  is  not  far,  I  saw  him  /^terday,” 
the  fiddler  said.  “He  ’s  just  up  in  the  blue 
sky  with  my  mama  and  three,  four,  nine  little 
angels.  And  I  ’m  going  to  my  papa  ;  that ’s 
what  I ’m  going  to  do.” 

“  How  will  yo’  go  ?  ”  asked  Clothilde  prac¬ 
tically;  “  how  will  yo’  climb  into  de  sky  widout 
no  wings  ?  De  littl’  angels  all  has  nice  big 
wings.” 

“  No,”  said  Troululu,  “they  don’t  have  any 
wings  at  all,  they  just  climb.” 

Clothilde  pointed  to  the  blue  clay  angel  on 
the  shelf.  “  Don’  yo’  see  de  wings  ?  Everyt’ing 
in  de  sky  ’a$  to  ’ave  wings.” 

“  Like  the  birds  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler,  looking 


132 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


up  in  the  bright  earnestness  with  which  she 
always  gazed  at  new  ideas. 

“Jus’  like  big,  w’ite  birds,”  Clothilde  an¬ 
swered,  picking  the  fiddler  up  and  beginning 
to  dress  her. 

“  Who  makes  their  wings?  ”  the  fiddler  asked. 

“The  bon  Dieu,”  said  Clothilde. 

“  And  does  he  take  them  off  at  night,  like 
their  dresses,  when  he  puts  them  to  bed  ?  ” 

“  Naw,  dey  stay  on  all  de  time,”  Clothilde 
answered,  beginning  to  feel  a  little  unsteady 
in  the  deep  water  of  the  fiddler’s  questions. 
“  Dey  keep  dem  on  jus’  like  de  birds.” 

“  I  want  the  bon  Dieu  to  make  me  some 
wings, — why  don’t  he  ?  ”  asked  the  fiddler. 

“  W’en  yo’  die,”  said  Clothilde,  fastening  the 
last  button  with  a  great  relief;  “but  now  le’s 
make  de  breakfas’.” 

The  fiddler  broke  into  another  wail.  “  I  like 
my  papa  the  best,”  she  cried.  “  I  don’t  want 
any  breakfast,  I  want  some  wings  to  fly  up  to  my 
papa.  O-oh  — - 1  like  my  papa  the  best  —  I  like 
my  papa  the  best  —  and  when  I  called  him  he 
didn  7  come.” 

Clothilde  looked  around  her  in  despair. 
The  rows  of  water  monkeys,  the  vases  and  the 
pitchers,  the  frog  mugs  and  the  puzzle  mugs, 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


133 


the  fighting  green  dragons  on  the  upper  shelf, 
the  blue  clay  angel,  and  the  long  brown  alli¬ 
gator,  gave  her  no  idea  for  comforting  a  baby 
who  liked  her  papa  best.  “  And  he  told  me  to 
keep  her  happy/’  Clothilde  thought.  As  she 
stood  there  with  the  baby  quivering  and  sob¬ 
bing  at  her  feet,  all  the  little  pleasures  of  all 
the  long  days  at  the  pottery  came  back  to  her, 
and  they  all  seemed  now  to  have  been  so  cen¬ 
tered  in  Giacomo  that  it  seemed  only  pitiful  to 
think  of  trying  them  when  he  was  gone.  And 
he  had  never  scolded,  no  matter  what  they 
had  injured  in  their  play.  She  remembered 
the  day  they  built  the  high  tower  out  of  pots. 
The  fiddler  always  had  the  most  fun  with  the 
pots.  Clothilde  went  to  the  room  where  she 
and  Giacomo  had  resisted  the  siege  of  the 
pottery;  the  pots  were  cupped  into  one  another 
just  as  she  had  often  strung  azalias  or  jasmine 
bells.  She  took  two  stacks  as  high  as  she 
could  carry,  and,  holding  one  against  her  with 
each  hand,  went  out  into  the  yard.  She  made 
several  trips  before  the  fiddler  noticed  her, 
and  she  was  building  a  high  wall  out  of  the  pots 
when  the  fiddler  came  silently  beside  her. 

After  a  long  time  Troululu  spoke.  “What 

for  ?  ”  she  asked. 

9* 


134 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  To  see  how  high  I  can  make  it,”  Clothilde 
answered. 

“Can  I  climb  on  it,”  asked  the  fiddler,  “  up 
to  the  sky  ?  ” 

“  If  we  get  it  enough  high,”  Clothilde 
answered. 

The  fiddler  handed  her  a  pot  and  kept  on 
handing  until  Clothilde  persuaded  her  to  start 
another  wall  alongside,  so  as  to  have  one  for 
each  foot.  While  she  was  building  it  Clo¬ 
thilde  slipped  away  to  start  the  fire  and  to 
hang  Trascan’s  bright  cage  in  her  window  as 
a  sign  that  all  was  well. 

In  spite  of  Clothilde’s  constant  efforts,  there 
was  never  a  day  that  the  fiddler  did  not  plan 
to  go  to  her  father,  but  she  cried  less  as  the 
days  crept  along  and  were  followed  by  the 
slow  reluctant  weeks,  and  Clothilde,  weary 
from  long  hours  of  ceaseless  romping,  was 
thankful  every  night  to  take  down  the  red 
cage  and  put  the  lamp  in  its  place.  Some¬ 
times  she  had  to  take  the  fiddler  and  go  out 
on  errands,  and  then  she  always  asked  for 
news  of  her  uncle  and  of  the  fever,  but  after 
the  grocer  who  liked  to  talk  with  her  was 
taken  sick  she  had  to  go  elsewhere,  and  other 
dealers  were  less  communicative.  Philipe  Go- 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


135 


mez  recovered  and  Giacomo  was  called  to 
another  case  and  then  to  another.  When  the 
third  man  was  getting  better  there  was  a 
change  in  the  way  Clothilde  was  told  of  it. 
She  was  quick  to  notice  the  new  tone. 

“I  ’ave  told  yo’,”  she  said,  “  dat  my  uncle 
is  so  good  dat  his  w’eel  is  let  to  shine,  an’  in 
co’se  he  know  de  bes’  how  to  take  care  of  sick 
peopl’  w’en  ’e  ’as  jus’  been  sick  himself.” 

She  went  back  with  her  heart  carrying  her,  it 
was  so  light.  “  Dese  po’  miserab’  peopl’  going 
to  love  yo’  papa  now,  Troululu,”  she  said. 

“  I  like  my  papa  the  best,”  said  the  fiddler. 
“  When  will  he  come  ?  ” 

As  they  turned  into  the  street  toward  the 
pottery  they  saw  a  man  walking  slowly,  bend¬ 
ing  over  a  cane.  As  he  heard  their  voices 
he  raised  his  face.  It  was  Philipe  Gomez,  still 
thin  and  haggard  from  his  sickness.  He  was 
braving  a  relapse  by  coming  out  so  soon,  but 
Clothilde  did  not  know  that. 

“  Don’  come  up  to  me,”  he  said,  “  I  ave  been 
wid  de  fever  an’  it  is  bettah  faw  yo’  not  to 
come  too  near.  I  ’ave  been  to  see  if  de  cage 
was  in  yo’  window.’ 

Clothilde  drew  the  fiddler  close  to  her.  “Is 
my  uncle  sick  ?  ”  she  asked  slowly. 


136 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  Naw,  ’e  ain’  sick,”  Gomez  answered  in  the 
strained  bodiless  voice  of  the  very  weak.  “  It 
is  de  doctor.  De  doctor  come  to  see  my 
littl’  boy  an’  ’e  fell  sick  in  de  house.” 

“  De  doctor  !  ”  Clothilde  echoed.  She  had 
never  thought  that  the  doctor  could  be  sick, 
and  an  unbearable  pang  went  through  her  as 
if  his  being  sick  now  was  because  she  had  for¬ 
gotten  his  danger.  Gomez  saw  her  lips  begin 
to  quiver. 

“  Don’  be  skeered,”  he  said  gently  in  his 
monotonous  voice.  “  Wid  yo’  uncle  dere,  it 
will  come  all  right.  He  know  all  de  medicine 
now  like  de  doctor  ’imself.” 

“  I  tole  yo’,  Philipe  Gomez,”  Clothilde  be¬ 
gan,  but  the  man’s  pallid  face  reproached  her 
and  she  faltered. 

“  Yo’  tole  me  de  truth,”  he  said  solemnly. 
His  strained  features  began  to  work  like  a 
woman’s,  and  his  eyes  suddenly  filled  with 
tears.  He  stretched  out  his  hands  to  Cloth¬ 
ilde  across  the  space  between  them.  “  I  ask 
yo’  fawgiveness,”  he  began,  and  then  stood 
still  with  the  tears  running  down  his  cheeks 
trying  to  say  more.  “Ah,”  he  went  on  at 
last,  “  I  ’ave  not  de  words.  Do  not  come 
near,  pass  by  me  and  go  home.” 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


137 


Clothilde  could  not  answer  him.  She  lifted 
the  fiddler  in  her  arms  and  hurried  by  while 
he  bowed  feebly  above  his  stick  and  crept 
along  with  the  message  of  cheer  to  Giacomo 
for  which  he  was  risking  his  life. 

“  What  for  did  he  cry  ?  ”  the  fiddler  asked. 

“  Because,”  Clothilde  answered  vaguely, 
“because  yo’  papa  is  so  good.” 

The  first  stir  of  life  that  Potosi  had  known 
since  the  beginning  of  the  fever  came  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  doctors  sickness.  People 
could  not  stay  quietly  in  their  houses  while  he 
was  in  danger,  and  they  thronged  round  the 
.stores  and  the  post-office  and  Philipe  Gomez’s 
door  waiting  for  some  word.  Clothilde’s 
friendly  grocer  was  well  again,  and  early  next 
morning  he  came  in  his  turn  to  look  for  Tras- 
can’s  cage  in  the  pottery  window.  Clothilde 
heard  him  call. 

“  Hello !  ” 

“W’at  has  happened?”  she  asked  at  the 
door. 

“  Nothing,”  he  answered.  “  I  just  came  to 
look  for  your  sign.  As  long  as  you  and  the 
fiddler  are  well  Barse  don’t  want  to  leave  the 
doctor  a  minute,  except  to  prescribe  for  them 
that ’s  sick,  and  the  Lord  knows  we  don’t  want 


i3§ 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


him  to.  But  don’t  be  scared,  there  ’s  not  been 
much  dying  since  your  uncle  took  hold.  We 
all  got  to  feeling  kind  of  easy,  as  if  him  an’ 
the  doctor  was  a  team,  and  now  it  looks  like 
he ’s  doing  just  as  well  single  handed.  Peo¬ 
ple  all  feels  that,  and  yet,  as  long  as  the  old 
doctor  lays  there  —  ”  The  grocer  stopped  a 
minute  and  went  on  jerkily  :  “  People ’s  going 
wild  through  the  streets,  and  even  your  uncle 
can’t  stop  ’em.  Sick  and  well,  they  ’re  all 
running  round  asking  news  of  him,  so  your 
uncle  sent  word  for  you  to  stay  close  inside. 
Some  of  us  will  bring  whatever  you  need  and 
stop  and  holler  back  and  forth  to  you  a  spell 
every  morning.” 

The  fiddler  pulled  at  Clothilde’s  hand.  “  Is 
he  going  to  take  me  to  my  papa?”  she  asked. 

“Lord  love  the  baby,”  the  grocer  answered; 
“  she  ’s  not  the  only  child  in  Potosi  that  ’s 
crying  for  its  father ;  but  I  reckon  all  that ’s 
left  of  us  will  stand  round  and  shout  when  Gia¬ 
como  gets  hold  of  her  again.” 

“  An’  w’en  de  doctor ’s  well,”  said  Clothilde. 

The  grocer  shook  his  head.  “  If  the  Lord 
lets  the  doctor  live,  an’  if  your  uncle  don’t  get 
the  fever,  every  day  ’ll  be  Sunday  in  this  town, 
we  ’ll  be  so  full  of  praise.  Don’t  fret,  it  ’ll  be 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU 


139 


a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  for  Potosi  folks, 
an’  I  reckon  they  ’ll  find  a  way  to  show  it.” 

As  he  turned  away  the  fiddler  burst  into 
tears. 

“  He  did  n’t  take  me  to  my  papa,”  she  cried. 

“Naw,”  said  Clothilde,  struggling  with  a 
strange  uncertain  joy,  “  but  yo’  papa  will  come, 
an’  all  de  peopl’,  Troululu.  Yo’  never  goin’ 
to  see  dem  run  from  yo’  no  mo’.  Dey  will  all 
come  an’  play,  an’  yo’  will  be  so  happy,  happy, 
happy.  Yo’  will  fo’get  w’en  Clothilde  play  de 
hoss  faw  yo’.” 

Troululu  did  a  strange  thing  instead  of  an¬ 
swering.  She  neither  took  hold  of  the  braids 
which  Clothilde  shook  down  wistfully  to  her, 
nor  brushed  them  angrily  away.  She  went 
across  to  the  bed,  and  climbing  up  on  it  laid 
her  cheek  upon  the  pillow.  “  I  ’m  so  tired 
without  my  papa,”  she  said. 

Clothilde  followed  her  in  alarm.  “Are  yo’ 
sick  ?  ”  she  asked.  1 

“  I  want  my  papa,”  the  fiddler  answered 
wearily. 

Clothilde  felt  of  her  head  and  hands,  and 
did  not  find  her  cold  or  over  warm.  The  fid¬ 
dler  had  never  willingly  lain  down  before  in 
all  her  life,  as  far  as  Clothilde  knew,  and  Clo- 


140 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


thilde  tried  and  tried  to  interest  her  in  play, 
but  Troululu  gave  the  same  answer  to  every¬ 
thing.  She  was  tired  without  her  papa,  and 
she  liked  him  best. 

Clothilde  reasoned  to  herself  that  with  such 
an  unusual  child  as  the  fiddler  loneliness  might 
work  itself  out  like  this,  but  even  without  the 
cold  dread  which  she  could  not  reason  away, 
it  would  have  been  almost  heart-breaking  to 
see  the  fiddler  lying  still  and  tired  on  the  bed, 
and  Clothilde’s  hands  were  shaking  when  she 
drew  a  light  cover  over  the  small  feet.  The 
fiddler  did  not  kick  the  cover  off.  Clothilde ’s 
heart  sank  at  that,  and  she  felt  again  of  the 
child’s  forehead.  There  seemed  to  be  noth¬ 
ing  wrong,  but  the  big  eyes,  which  should 
have  been  so  eager,  were  veiled  with  drowsi¬ 
ness.  Clothilde  stole  away  to  the  window, 
and  looked  from  it  without  seeing  anything. 

If  Giacomo  had  not  sent  her  word  to  stay 
inside  she  would  have  run  out  to  find  some 
one  to  tell  her  what  to  do.  If  the  fiddler  was 
not  really  sick,  she  ought  not  to  send  for 
Giacomo,  because  that  might  lose  the  doctor’s 
life  besides  putting  the  fiddler  in  danger,  and 
she  dared  not  go  out  and  ask  some  one  who 
knew  better  than  she  to  come  in  and  look  at 


THE  LONELINESS  OF  TROULULU  141 

the  baby.  She  dropped  on  her  knees  and 
said  every  prayer  that  Father  Henri  had  taught 
her  ;  when  they  were  finished  she  looked  across 
at  the  bed.  The  fiddler  was  sleeping  still  and 
there  was  nothing  she  could  do  but  say  the 
prayers  all  over  several  times  —  she  wished 
she  knew  more  of  them  so  they  would  not  be 
said  so  quickly.  The  sun’s  light  moved  across 
the  floor  and  marked  the  time.  An  hour 
passed  and  Troululu  still  slept.  At  the  end 
of  the  second  hour  Clothilde  could  not  bear 
the  silence  any  longer  and  she  wakened  her. 

“  Has  my  papa  come  ?  ”  the  fiddler  asked. 

“Naw,”  Clothilde  answered  almost  with  a 
sob. 

“Tell  him  I  cried  for  him,”  Troululu  mur¬ 
mured,  “tell  him  I  cried  for  him  and  he  did  n’t 
come.” 

“  I  t’ink  ’e  will  come,  oh — -soon,”  Clothilde 
choked  out —  “  unless  yo’  feel  rested  an’  want 
to  build  mo’  wall  of  de  pots  ?  ” 

“  I  ’m  too  tired  without  my  papa,”  the  fid¬ 
dler  answered,  and  soon  she  fell  asleep. 

Clothilde  bent  over  in  an  agony  of  ques¬ 
tioning.  Was  it  only  the  long  weeks  of  lone¬ 
liness,  or  could  it  be  that  now  when  all  Potosi 
had  learned  to  know  and  to  love  Giacomo, 


142 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


and  the  wonderful  joy  of  seeing  his  fiddler 
loved  was  opening  for  him,  his  little  fiddler 
had  crept  up  on  to  the  bed  to  lie  so  still  because 
the  merciless  fever  had  found  her,  too,  and 
she  was  falling  sick  ? 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  WHEEL  OF  THE  BON  DIEU 

HE  fiddler  began  to  sigh  and 
moan  in  her  sleep.  Clothilde 
touched  her  face  and  found  that 
it  had  suddenly  grown  hot. 
There  was  no  question  now. 
She  ran  to  her  window  and  took  down  the 
cage.  “  Oh,  come  soon  !  soon  !”  she  begged. 

“  Don’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup  !  ”  the  fid¬ 
dler  cried  out  sharply.  “  A  quart  cup  !  A 
quart  cup!  No,  no,  papa,  don’t  put  me  on 
the  wheel !  ” 

“Yo’  ain’  on  de  w’eel,  cherie ,  yo’  in  bed,” 
Clothilde  said,  soothing  her  hands.  Troululu 
opened  her  eyes  and  sat  up  with  burning 
cheeks. 

“  Where ’s  my  papa  ?  ”  she  asked. 

“  He  ain’  come,  yo’  was  dreamin’,”  Clothilde 
answered.  “  Jus’  lie  down,  he ’s  cornin’  prett’ 
soon  ;  an’  he  won’t  put  yo’  on  de  w’eel.” 


143 


144 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


The  fiddler  let  herself  be  put  back  on  the 
pillows,  and  her  eyelids  sank  half  way  across 
her  full  dull  eyes,  but  in  a  moment  she  started 
up  again.  “  Don’t  let  the  dreams  come, 
Clothilde,”  she  begged.  “  The  big  black 
dreams  run  after  me  and  put  me  on  the  wheel 
—  tell  them  to  go.” 

“  Dey  shall  not  run  after  yo’,”  said  Clo¬ 
thilde  ;  “I  will  sing  yo’  ‘  Tournez  toujour  s' 
an’  dey  will  go  away.” 

She  commenced  crooning  softly,  and  the 
fiddler  smiled  up  at  her  with  one  of  those 
smiles  so  full  of  meaning  that  they  frighten  us 
on  the  faces  of  children.  “  My  papa  used  to 
sing  that,”  she  said. 

Her  eyes  wandered  again,  and  soon  she 
slept,  but  Clothilde  dared  not  leave  her  now 
to  go  for  help.  “  Oh,  come  soon  !  soon  !  ”  she 
implored  silently.  “  Oh,  Uncle  Giacomo,  yo’ 
littl’  fiddler  is  so  sick,  an’  I  don’  know  w’at  to 
do.  Oh,  come  soon  !  soon  !  faw  I  don’  know 
w’at  to  do  !  ”  She  buried  her  head  in  her  lap 
and  cried  the  words  aloud  into  the  folds  of  her 
dress.  “  Oh,  Uncle  Giacomo,  can’d  yo’  hear 
me  ?  She ’s  ver  sick,  an’  I  don’  know  w’at  to 
do!” 

“  Don’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup !  Don’t 


THE  WHEEL  OF  THE  BON  DIEU  145 

make  me  into  a  pint  cup  1  the  fiddler  called 
out  again,  and  when  Clothilde  spoke  to  her 
she  did  not  answer,  but  kept  on  with  shrill 
feverish  insistence :  “  Oh,  I  ’ll  be  good,  I  ’ll  be 
good  !  Don’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup  !  Oh, 
papa,  I  ’ll  be  good,  I  ’ll  be  good,  I  ’ll  be  good  ! 
Take  me  off  the  wheel !  ” 

The  red  sunlight  came  streaming  in  through 
the  windows  and  glowed  on  all  that  the  potter 
loved, —  his  crowded  shelves,  his  cumbered 
floor,  the  gray,  silent  wheel,  the  black  head 
bowed  beside  the  bed,  and  the  little  tossing 
figure  that  could  find  no  rest.  The  sunset 
died  away,  and  shadows  stole  down  from  the 
ceiling,  and  out  from  every  corner  and  shelf, 
and  gathered  round  the  bed,  but  Clothilde 
would  not  light  the  lamp  for  fear  it  should  be 
taken  as  a  token  of  safety,  even  though  it  was 
not  in  her  window.  She  would  be  glad,  too, 
she  thought,  to  see  the  wheel  shine  through 
the  dark,  but  a  band  of  moonlight  crossed  the 
shadows  and  rested  on  the  wheel,  hiding  its 
glow.  Clothilde  shuddered,  and  could  not 
comfort  herself  by  remembering  that  the  bon 
Dieu  sends  every  kind  of  light. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  the  moon  had  been 
shining  a  long  time  when  she  heard  footsteps 

10 


146 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


along  the  road  outside.  She  ran  to  the  door, 
and  saw  her  uncle  hurrying  toward  her. 

“  Oh,  Uncle  Giacomo,  de  baby  !  ”  she  cried 
out. 

Giacomo  ran  past  her  and  dropped  down  by 
the  bed.  “  Little  fiddler,”  he  murmured. 

He  felt  her  hot  hands  push  him  away. 
“Don’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup!”  she 
screamed. 

Clothilde  saw  him  totter  to  his  feet,  and 
heard  him  sob.  It  was  the  only  punishment 
he  had  ever  even  threatened,  and  she  felt  that 
she  would  rather  a  thousand  times  be  sick  or 
even  die  herself  than  have  him  hear  the  fiddler 
crying  out  in  fear  of  it.  “  It  is  de  fever  in  her 
head,”  she  said  to  him. 

“I  know,”  her  uncle  answered  quietly. 
“  We  can  have  a  lamp,  Clothilde,  now  that  I 
am  here.”  But  as  the  flame  flickered  upon 
him,  his  face  seemed  to  shrink  from  the  light, 
and  there  was  such  bitter  heartbreak  in  it  that 
the  tears  sprang  to  Clothilde’s  eyes.  “  Put  it 
on  the  wheel,”  he  said.  “  I  want  to  fix  some 
medicine.  How  long  has  she  been  like  this  ?  ” 

Clothilde  told  him  all  about  the  day,  and  he 
nodded  slowly  as  he  prepared  his  medicines 
and  listened.  Once  or  twice  his  hand  clenched 


THE  WHEEL  OF  THE  BON  DIEU 


147 


at  the  thought  of  the  hours  in  which  he  had 
been  needed,  and  Clothilde  had  not  known. 
At  the  end  he  looked  up  and  met  her  eyes. 
She  threw  herself  down  beside  him.  “  Uncle 
Giacomo,”  she  sobbed,  “  I  can’d  live  if  de  fid¬ 
dler  dies,  I  can’d,  I  can’d !  I  tried  to  do  de 
right,  I  tried  to  do  w’at  yo’  tole  me,  but  I 
did  n’t  know,  oh,  Uncle  Giacomo,  I  did  n’t 
know.” 

Giacomo  lifted  her,  and  held  her  close  in 
his  arms.  “  My  Clothilde,  you  did  right,”  he 
said,  brokenly.  “No  one  could  have  done 
better.  You  have  been  so  faithful — so  lov¬ 
ing — .  There  will  never  be  a  way  to  thank 
you;  but,  my  child,  next  to  the  fiddler  I  love 
you  best  of  anything  on  earth.” 

She  rested  trembling  against  his  shoulder, 
breathing  in  relief.  “  It  ’as  been  so  lone¬ 
some,”  she  whispered,  “an’  de  po’  littl’  fiddler 
—  oh,  Uncle  Giacomo,  I  don’  want  to  live  if 
she  don’  get  well.” 

Giacomo  put  her  gently  away  from  him. 
“Bring  me  some  water  now,”  he  said. 
“  We  ’re  all  going  to  live  and  see  happy  days, 
my  child.” 

It  is  the  terror  and  the  blessing  of  yellow 
fever  that  the  crisis  comes  so  soon.  Toward 


148 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


morning  of  the  second  night  after  Giacomo 
came  home  Troululu’s  fever  ceased.  Her 
father  sat  beside  her  watching  the  quiet  sleep 
into  which  she  had  fallen,  and  taking  note  of 
every  breath  she  breathed,  for  it  is  after  the 
fever  that  the  collapse  comes  in  which  people 
die.  Clothilde  was  in  her  room  asleep. 

Just  as  daylight  began  to  show  the  fiddler 
wakened.  Her  face  was  turned  from  Gia¬ 
como  and  she  did  not  see  him  at  first,  but 
her  eyes  rested  on  the  wheel.  Then  she 
looked  down  at  her  little  hands,  grown  thin 
by  even  those  three  wasting  days.  “  My 
papa  did  n’t  make  me  into  a  pint  cup,”  she 
said  weakly. 

Giacomo  had  risen  and  was  bending  over 
her.  A  quick  tear  dropped  upon  the  small 
weak  hands.  The  fiddler  raised  her  eyes 
with  the  slowness  of  exhaustion.  Wonder 
and  joy  sprang  into  them.  “  My  papa,”  she 
cried,  “you  ’ve  corned  home  from  the  blue, 
blue  sky.” 

He  kissed  her  and  held  her  two  hands  in 
his,  but  he  dared  not  say  very  much.  The 
doctor’s  constant  word  to  him  had  been  that 
excitement  was  bad.  “  My  Troululu,  my  lit¬ 
tle  fiddler,”  he  whispered  once  or  twice.  It 


THE  WHEEL  OF  THE  BON  DIEU 


149 


seemed  selfish  to  have  so  much  joy  all  alone, 
but  Clothilde  was  sleeping  and  the  fiddlers 
little  mother  could  not  come  back  to  them 
out  of  her  far  blue  sky.  He  felt  very  sorry 
for  her  alone  in  heaven  and  he  hoped  she 
knew. 

When  Clothilde  came  out  from  her  room, 

* 

the  fiddler  was  sleeping  again.  “  Go  right 
out  into  the  village  and  tell  the  folks  that  we 
think  she’s  safe,”  Giacomo  whispered,  “there ’s 
not  a  soul  among  ’em  now  that  does  n’t  want 
to  hear.” 

A  good  many  days  later,  when  he  was  well 
enough  to  walk  quietly  over  to  the  pottery, 
the  doctor  said,  “  I  hope,  Barse,  that  you 
know  it  was  n’t  entirely  your  skill  as  a  nurse 
that  saved  all  our  last  patients  from  the  grave¬ 
yard.”  He  was  very  thin,  and  he  looked  years 
older  than  when  he  was  at  the  pottery  before  ; 
but  there  was  a  boyish  twinkle  in  his  eyes. 

“  Why,  no,”  Giacomo  answered,  “  I  supposed 
it  was  your  skill.” 

“Stuff,”  said  the  doctor.  “And  it  was  n’t 
because  your  wheel  shines  in  the  dark,  as  I  am 
pleased  to  hear  the  people  telling  me,  either.” 

“Well,  I  know  that,”  said  the  potter,  “but 
if  it  was  n’t  either  of  us,  what  was  it  ?  ” 


150 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


“  It  was  the  queer,  natural  course  of  the 
thing,”  the  doctor  answered.  “As  I  told  you, 
it  was  never  very  virulent,  even  at  the  first, 
though  there  were  lots  of  deaths  from  pure 
fright,  and  by  the  time  I  persuaded  Philipe 
Gomez  into  sending  for  you,  its  strength  was 
pretty  well  played  out;  the  cases  were  all  mild.” 

Giacomo  looked  up  keenly.  The  two  were 
alone,  for  Clothilde  had  the  fiddler  out  for  her 
first  trial  of  sunshine.  “Did  you  wait  for  that?  ” 
he  asked. 

“  Huh,”  said  the  doctor,  “  if  I  did,  do  you  - 
reckon  I  ’d  say  so  ?  ” 

Giacomo  reached  out  his  hand  and  clasped 
the  doctors.  “ The  whole  town  is  friends  and 
brothers  with  me  now,”  he  said,  “  but  as  long 
as  I  live,  I  ’ll  never  forget  the  first  time  you 
shook  hands  with  me.  I  wish  it  was  n’t  such 
hard  talking,  doctor.” 

“  Talking!”  scoffed  the  doctor ;  “  if  you  want 
any  talking  done,  get  that  little  Santa  Claus 
to  do  it.  Perhaps  you  don’t  understand  that 
it  was  her  talking  brought  the  whole  town 
over.” 

“  I  think  I  understand  everything,”  the  pot¬ 
ter  said. 

They  were  silent  a  little  while,  then  the  doc- 


THE  WHEEL  OF  THE  BON  DIEU  151 

tor  broke  out  in  his  rough,  blunt  way.  “  ’Spose 
you ’ve  got  to  send  her  back  to  her  mother  as 
soon  as  the  frost  comes,  so  it’s  safe  for  her  folks. 
She ’s  not  going  to  have  the  fever,  and  neither 
are  you,  that’s  plain.” 

Giacomo’s  bright  eyes  grew  tender.  “  That 
poor  little  mother  of  hers,”  he  said,  “to  think 
of  her  doing  without  her  all  this  time !  Of 
course  she ’s  going  back,  but  my  name ’s  not 
Giacomo  any  more,  if  she  stays  there  all  the 
while.  I  think  my  sister-in-law  and  I  will  have 
to  share  her  —  share  and  share  alike.  I  want 
a  chance  to  give  her  the  best  time  any  girl  in 
this  world  ever  had.  I  don’t  have  much  to  do 
it  with,  but  she  and  I  know  each  other,  and  I 
can  make  her  happy.” 

“Sounds  kind  of  happy  now,”  the  doctor 
said.  “  What  they  up  to  out  there  ?  ” 

Giacomo  opened  the  door  and  peeped  into 
the  yard.  “She’s  building  another  wall  of 
pots  for  her  and  the  fiddler  to  climb  up  on,  up 
to  the  blue  sky,”  he  said. 

“  I  reckon  your  little  crab  will  knock  it  down 
before  it  gets  too  high,”  the  doctor  whispered, 
motioning  Giacomo  to  open  the  door  wide 
enough  for  him  to  see.  The  air  was  fresh 
with  the  first  crispness  of  autumn,  and  the 


152 


THE  WONDERFUL  WHEEL 


sunlight  glinted  down  upon  the  children  at  their 
work. 

“  Three,  four,  nine  little  angels  are  helping 
us,  papa,”  the  fiddler  cried;  “don’t  you  see 
their  big,  white  wings  ?  ” 

When  frost  came,  removing  the  last  danger 
from  the  town,  the  refugees  began  returning, 
one  by  one.  As  soon  as  they  had  been  greeted, 
their  friends  were  sure  to  say,  “  Come  round 
with  us  to  the  pottery  this  evening,  and  look 
over  the  queer  tricks  Barse  has  been  making 
on  his  wheel.” 

And  on  dark  nights,  when  they  went  late 
past  the  pottery,  and  saw  the  faint  light 
shining  from  the  window  between  the  black 
fantastic  forms,  there  was  not  a  man,  woman, 
or  child  in  Potosi  who  did  not  bow  his  head 
and  murmur  in  gratitude,  “  It  is  a  wonderful 
wheel.  It  is  the  wheel  of  the  bon  Dieu .” 


THE  END. 


